
Book_ 



^i 



Copyright N^ 



COPyRIGHT DEPOSrr. 



YOUTH AND THE RACE 

A STUDY IN THE 
PSYCHOLOGY OF ADOLESCENCE 



^ 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR 



MIND IN THE MAKING 

A Study in Mental Development 

I Volume. i3mo . . . net $1.50 



YOUTH AND THE RACE 

A STUDY IN THE 
PSYCHOLOGY OF ADOLESCENCE 



BY 

EDGAR JAMES SWIFT 

PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY AND EDUCATION IN WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY 

SAINT LOUIS 

AUTHOR OF "mind IN THE MAKING" 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1912 






Copyright, 1912, by 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 



Published September, 191 2 







So 
MY WIFE 



PREFACE 

The role which racial instincts play in the 
emotions, intellect, and will of children has been 
the subject of many investigations in recent years 
by those interested in the psychology of child- 
hood. These studies, however, have had but 
slight effect upon the methods of the schools. 
This book is an attempt to show the possible 
application of some of these results to the edu- 
cation of children. 

Teachers have followed the traditional meth- 
ods of education which were adopted before the 
knowledge which we now have was available. The 
ideas and practice of the old English grammar- 
schools were brought to this country by those 
deeply imbued with belief in the natural deprav- 
ity of children, and our educational methods 
have never recovered from the affliction. 

The author has tried to indicate how the 
schools may help to transform into intellectual 
and moral forces the racial instincts which, as 
manifestations of original sin, distressed our 
forefathers. 



viii PREFACE 

Effort has also been made to fix the responsl- 
bihty for conditions that cause these primitive 
impulses to continue dominant beyond the age 
when they should yield to social and ethical prin- 
ciples of action. 

Washington University, 
Saint Louis, Mo., July, 191 2. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. The Spirit of Adventure .... 3 

II. The Ways of Youth 41 

III. The Chance to Grow 85 

IV, The School and the Community . . 129 
V. Vagaries of the School . . . . 173 

VI. Fallacies in Moral Training . . . 214 

VII. The Spirit of the Gang: an Educa- 
tional Asset 246 

VIII. The Release of Mental Forces . . 288 

Index . 339 



YOUTH AND THE RACE 



YOUTH AND THE RACE 

CHAPTER I 
THE SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE 

One day two thirteen-year-old boys disappeared 
from their homes in Bath Beach. Six weeks later 
a Nebraska baker, into whose shop they went to 
buy some bread, concluding from the youngsters' 
dilapidated appearance that they had run away, 
drew from them the following story,^ which they 
afterward repeated at their home. 

"You see, I wanted to get rich and there wasn't 
any chance in Bath Beach," said Wilbur, who acted 
as spokesman. "I just sort of felt that I must see 
the world. I'd never been in any place but New 
York, and then I had to go with grown-up folks 
and was treated Hke a kid. The night we went 
away I didn't have a cent, but I wasn't afraid. I 
thought we only had to go out West and find a 
gold mine. Had I been reading books of advent- 
ure? Of course I had. That's about the only way 
you can get adventures at Bath Beach. 

^New York World, September 3, 1906. 
3 



4 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

"We got on the train for New York, for we 
knew that was the starting-point for everywhere. 
Then we crossed the ferry and landed at the Lacka- 
wanna station in Hoboken. We hung around the 
freight cars for two days before we got a chance 
to steal a ride to Buffalo. We went mighty slow 
on the two dollars that Harry had, so we didn't 
live very high. 

*'Out of Buffalo we got a car for Chicago. And, 
say, the police are no good. Why, my mother 
sent out descriptions of me, and I used to pass 
the cops in all the cities we visited without dodg- 
ing. They never even thought I looked suspicious. 

**I don't think much of Chicago, and Buffalo's 
surely on the bum. You see, we stayed most of 
the time around the freight yards, but we made 
turns into the cities just so we could see the world. 

"Of course, we didn't expect to strike it rich till 
we got West. When we left Chicago on a freight 
car we didn't stop at any more big cities. 

"Goodness, but we had some terrible experi- 
ences! but I wasn't afraid. Once we were held up 
by two big fellows who were riding on the same 
freight car. Harry had a six-shooter, and the 
fellows wanted to get it. First they put their pis- 
tols to my head and told me to give up my six- 
shooter. When I said I didn't have one they 
started for Harry. He had slipped his pistol down 



THE SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE 5 

his trousers leg while they were after me and told 
them another fellow who was riding on the car 
had taken it. They went after him, and while 
they were at it, Harry and I jumped off and hid 
in the woods. 

"We had a hard time on the freight cars. The 
railroad men kept chasing us and we fell off lots 
of times. I didn't get hurt much — ^just jarred up 
a bit — but I didn't care when I was hunting a 
fortune. 

"We didn't have much to eat, and by the time 
we struck Wayside, Nebraska, we were getting 
pretty anxious to find our gold mine. We got a 
chance to work on the railroad for a few days, so 
we saved up some money. I didn't have any shoes 
or stockings and my shirt was all worn out. I 
bought a pair of long trousers to make me look 
taller. 

"Then we started out to walk farther west, but 
we didn't come to any gold mines. Nothing but 
prairies everywhere. We walked and walked till 
we came to Crawford, Nebraska. One day I went 
into a bakery to buy food. It was our last fifty 
cents, and the man looked at me kind of funny 
and said, 'Haven't you run away.?' I told him I 
had, and he was mighty good to us." 

Wilbur and Harry were not abnormal hoys. 
They loved their home and their parents, but they 
wanted excitement. They might have found this 



6 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

in the nickelodeons and the alleys — the civilized 
successors of the woods and streams — but these 
did not satisfy them, and therein they showed 
their good stuff. They wanted adventures with 
the wild instead of with the policemen of Bath 
Beach. And having no opportunity to enjoy ad- 
ventures at home they ran away to find them. 

Civilization is young. Not very long ago man 
was wandering about from place to place, remain- 
ing in one spot only so long as a comfortable living 
could be secured for the tribe by hunting, or until 
driven away by superior enemies. It would be 
strange indeed if long ages of forest life, during 
which man laid aside his weapons only to enjoy 
what they had given him or to prepare for new con- 
quests, should have left no impress on his descend- 
ants. But we are not dependent here upon mere 
conjecture. Let us delay for a moment to glance 
at some of the evidence. 

Various writers^ have called attention to certain 
fears for the existence of which only racial reasons 
can be offered. As illustrations we may mention 
fear in the woods after nightfall, though they are 
much safer to-day than many city streets where 

*J. 0. Quantz, "Dendro-Psychosis," American Journal of Psy- 
chology, vol. 9, p. 449. S. S. Buckman, "Babies and Monkeys," 
Nineteenth Century, vol. 36, 1894, p. 727. A. A. Mumford, "Survival 
Movements of Human Infancy," Brain, vol. 20, 1897, p. 290. L. 
Robinson, "Darwinism in the Nursery," Nineteenth Century, vol. 30, 
1891, p. 831. 



THE SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE 7 

children and men do not have the same timidity; 
the instinctive fear of wild animals and harmless 
reptiles; fear of high winds, even among those who 
have never experienced cyclones or tornadoes; and 
agoraphobia, an inexplicable fear on any other 
basis than as a survival of the time when exposure 
in the open meant death. 

Water also has played a tremendously important 
part among primitive people in their conceptions 
of life, as well as in folk literature, in philosophic 
speculation, and in religious cults. Professor Bol- 
ton^ has collected a large amount of data showing 
the curious attitude of children toward water. All 
of it is rich in racial memories. 

The play of children again offers strong prima 
facie evidence of the irresistible influence of this 
racial heritage. Investigations of the sports of 
primitive people always impress one with the fact 
that certain games are perennial. They are modi- 
fied from age to age, but they are always the same 
old games. Spinning tops, archery, guessing games, 
hidden-ball, dice, ball and racket (in which the 
racket is strikingly Hke that used to-day in tennis), 
shinny, foot-ball, quoits, and cat's cradle are a few 
of those pictured by Mr. Stewart Culin'^ in his 

* American Journal of Psychology, vol. lo, p. 169. 

* "Twenty-fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of American 
Ethnology, 1902-03." See also "The Study of Man," by Alfred 
C. Haddon. 



8 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

interesting study of the games of the North Ameri- 
can Indians. 

No sport is so dehghtful to boys in the country 
and small towns, where land enough is available, 
as digging caves in which to conceal themselves 
from other boys or from which they may make 
sorties on neighboring orchards. The spoils of 
their raids are brought to their retreat with great 
glee and secrecy, perhaps in time to rot and be 
thrown away; but that does not matter. It was 
the fun of seizure, not the fruit, that they wanted. 

Three boys, whom the writer knows, dig a large 
and deep hole in one of their gardens every fall. 
The top is covered with boards and a secret under- 
ground passage leads to the cavern. This passage 
is not long enough to afford any real concealment, 
but such is the deception of play. This cave is the 
winter rendezvous of the boys, and the coal cars of 
a railroad near by afford a never-failing source of 
fuel for the cave fire. 

A group of boys, in age from ten to twelve, with 
whom the writer camped one summer, found keen 
delight in building wigwams out of the branches 
of trees, and in making a "one-night shelter" by 
bending down a small tree and piling branches 
around it so as to protect their heads and bodies 
from the "rain," while their feet were kept warm 
by means of a small camp-fire. 



THE SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE 9 

Any one who has had contact with boys in the 
open can dupHcate these instances many times 
over. They illustrate the natural flow of primitive 
impulses which have not been dammed up and 
turned into civilization's alleys. 

The methods by which these racial instincts may 
be utilized in the development of boys, instead of 
being encouraged to function in a non-social way, 
will be discussed in subsequent chapters, but first 
it is desirable to see the result of failure to provide 
conditions suitable to their healthful expression. 
The following items are taken from newspapers. 
If they lack the exactness in details usual in news- 
paper reports, they are nevertheless true in essen- 
tial facts. The names of the children and some- 
times other unessential statements are omitted. 

Case I. — Residents of Jardine Place, Brooklyn, com- 
plained to the police yesterday that a gang of boys, whose 
ages range from fifteen to twenty, had left their homes in 
the district and become pirates, living in a cave on a vacant 
lot in Jardine Place. It was said that the gang had look- 
outs posted and lived by looting the neighboring houses of 
milk and rolls and anything else they could find. Inciden- 
tally they accosted unsuspecting youths and lured them to 
the pirates' lair, where they mulcted them of various sums 
by playing poker. The game, the victims averred, always 
seemed to be on the side of the pirates. 

A policeman in plain clothes stalked the juvenile ban- 
dits at 8 p. M. last night, and discovered that the cave had 
been excavated fully twenty feet into the ground. The 
boys all carried tin battle-axes and dark-lanterns, and used 
strange terms that were supposed to have been in vogue 



10 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

two hundred years ago on the Spanish Main. Sentries 
were posted, and the password for the night was "Sparum 
Poco." 

Not daring to use such strange words, the officer wrig- 
gled through the tall grass and weeds in Indian fashion. 
With his ear to the ground, he heard one of the pirates say, 
"Three ladies and a pair of knaves." To which another 
answered, "Fade away. I've got four bullets. The pot's 
mine." Two of the boys were arrested and taken to the 
police station. The other "pirates" escaped.* 

Case 2. — A twelve-year-old boy, known among his com- 
panions as "Chief Yockel, King of the Bandits," gave the 
police reserves of the Morrisania Station several hours of 
worry yesterday when he hid himself in a cave of rocks and 
refused to come out. After the heavy stones had been re- 
moved by the police and a gang of Italian laborers. Chief 
Yockel was locked up in a cell on a charge made by his 
mother that he was incorrigible. 

"My pals wouldn't stick by me; they all went home," he 
sobbed as he was being locked up. 

For several weeks Chief Yockel and his companions have 
been using the cave in a lot at Fox Street and Saint John's 
Avenue as a place to read dime novels and play Indian. 
The cave was about ten feet deep and the entrance was so 
small that only one boy could enter at a time. 

Monday afternoon, Yockel discovered his mother's 
pocket-book on the kitchen table. In it was twenty dollars. 
Quickly the "Chief" gathered his followers, and announced 
that the time had come to celebrate. In the mean time the 
boy's mother missed him and her purse. 

Shortly after eight o'clock this morning an uncle of the 
boy saw the "Chief" seated near the cave in which he had 
slept all night. He started after him, but the young Indian 
wriggled through the opening and refused to come out. 
Yockel appealed to the police. The captain of the Morris- 
ania Station appealed to a gang of laborers across the street, 
and the work of pulling the rocks away began. 
> New York Times, September s, 1908. 



THE SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE 11 

The police and the laborers were afraid to work fast, for 
the whole structure might give way and the boy in the cave 
be crushed if the keystone rock were moved. After an hour's 
work, the boy's legs could be seen, and the police tried to 
throw a noose around them. But the "Chief" was prepared 
for this emergency, and when the rope slipped across his 
feet he cut it. After another hour's work the rocks were 
removed and the boy was dragged from the cave and taken 
to the police station.^ 

Case 3. — The Wild West dreams of five Saint Louis boys, 
whose ages range frorri eleven to sixteen years, suddenly ter- 
minated yesterday afternoon, when they were rounded up 
by Saint Louis County officers, while the boys were sitting 
around their camp-fire formulating plans and telling thrilling 
stories. The leader of the band led the constable a chase of 
over a mile, in which the officer fired half a dozen shots 
before he captured the boy. 

The youngsters were camping in the woods about fifty 
feet from the Rock Island Railroad tracks, east of Clayton. 
The spot they had selected to board an outbound freight 
was at the bottom of a steep incline, where the train is 
brought nearly to a stop. 

Each of the boys had a sharp knife. They all had time- 
tables of railroads, and were figuring on reaching Texas 
within two weeks. They carried two loaves of bread and a 
pound of butter in a sack, besides a pair of new shoes and a 
carriage-robe. Two of the boys had on two pairs of trousers. 
They had a pack of playing-cards, with which they said they 
intended to amuse themselves while in camp. They also 
had a package of pins, several needles, and a spool of thread. 

One of the boys said that he had bought the shoes found 
in the sack, but that they hurt his feet and he had to take 
them off. They were number ten, and the pair the lad had 
on were about number five. The young adventurers claimed 
that they found the carriage-robe. They had eighty-three 
cents among them, but said that they expected to get more 
money. 

* New York Times, March 9, 1910. 



12 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

When the constable asked them if they expected to get 
more money by holding up a train, they replied, "Oh, maybe 
we would do that, or else crack a crib and blow wid de cash." ^ 

Case 4. — Five boys, ranging from fourteen to fifteen years 
old, were arraigned beforejustice Hoyt, sitting in the Children's 
Court, yesterday, charged with improper guardianship. After 
the judge had heard their stories, they were remanded to the 
Children's Society until Saturday. 

On Tuesday afternoon a policeman of the West Forty- 
seventh Street Station saw the boys acting suspiciously in 
the freight yard of the New York Central Railroad at the foot 
of West Fifty-seventh Street. He watched them for some 
time and saw the five climb into an empty freight car attached 
to a train that had just started to move. He then arrested 
them. 

When the boys were searched, an emergency kit was found 
containing one roll of six-inch gauze bandages, two boxes of 
pills, one package of court-plaster, two bottles of cough- 
mixture, two bologna-sausage rings, and three loaves of 
bread. 

In court yesterday the one who acted as spokesman said 
that they had formed a club some time ago to get the necessary 
things to beat their way West. When asked what they in- 
tended to do with the bandages, he said, "You can't tell 
what will happen to you when you get West, and we didn't 
want to take any chances. We figured that we could get 
grub from somewhere, but if we got mixed up in a wreck or 
caught cold, bandages and medicines would be the things we 
would need." 

Their parents said the boys had been model children.^ 

Case 5. — The efforts of two boys, fifteen and sixteen years 
of age, from New Rochelle, New York, to lead a frontier life 
came to an end last night when the Portland police raided the 
camp they had built in the woods. The policemen confiscated 
pistols and lassos and took the boys to the police station. 

' Saint Louis Globe-Democrat, January 8, 1909. 
^ New York Times, May 5, 19 10. 



THE SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE 13 

The officers had received word from relatives of the boys 
to look for them in this section, and learned of their camp 
through word brought by trappers. They had built a rough 
hut of small logs, and, as they had a little money, had been 
living well. They were loth to leave their comfortable 
quarters.^ 

Case 6. — Thinking that it would be fun to frighten one of 
their schoolfellows by sending him a Black-Hand letter, two 
New York boys, fourteen years old, wrote a note to another 
boy, the son of wealthy parents, demanding ten dollars and 
threatening death if it were not forthcoming. 

The letter was signed, "King of the Black Hand," and 
was profusely ornamented with skulls, cross-bones, and 
daggers. 

Two detectives were ordered to find the writer. The 
boys who had sent the letter smilingly came to the detec- 
tives and told them that they had written it for fun. To 
their great astonishment they were immediately arrested 
and locked up.^ 

Case 7. — Moving pictures illustrating cow-boy life inter- 
ested a fourteen-year-old youngster to the point of emulation 
as he sat in the " Mystic Arcade. " As soon as the lights were 
turned on he jumped up, pushed his two boy companions out 
into the aisle, and, pulling from his hip-pocket a revolver, 
pointed it at their feet and called out, "Dance, you tender- 
feet." 

There were two hundred people, mostly women and chil- 
dren, in the theatre, and so lustily did the boy shout, and so 
freely did he swing his pistol, that there arose a commotion 
on all sides. Women screamed and made for the doors. 

The manager of the theatre came hurrying down the aisle. 
The boy swung the revolver in line with him. 

"Hands up," he called. The manager took one jump over 
the orchestra railing and dived behind the piano. 

A patrolman of the Fourth Avenue Station saw women 

* New York Times, June 27, 19 10. 

^ Saint Louis Post-Dispatch, February 11, 1910. 



14 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

hurrying out of the theatre. He ran in, saw the revolver, 
and made for it. The boy, seeing him come, quietly held out 
the pistol reversed. 

"Well, partner," said he, "I guess you've got the drop on 
me." 

The policeman took him to the station and there found 
that the pistol was not loaded. They sent the boy to the Chil- 
dren's Society as a juvenile delinquent and will arraign him 
to-day in the Children's Court.^ 

Case 8. — Two boys, aged twelve and thirteen, who said they 
ran away from their homes in Jacksonville, Illinois, to emu- 
late Robinson Crusoe and live in a little hut in some big woods, 
subsisting only on fish, were arrested yesterday morning at 
Main and Vine Streets, hungry as bears and crying because 
of the cold and exposure. They said that they had walked 
from Jacksonville, and, as their parents would not have enough 
money to send for them, requested that they be cared for by 
the police. They were sent to the House of Detention.* 

A pleasant home with kind parents whose chief 
concern is the happiness and welfare of their chil- 
dren is sometimes thought to be the best antidote 
for juvenile escapades, but the desire for adventure 
is not limited to any one class of boys, as is shown 
by the following: 

Case 9. — The thirteen-year-old son of a prominent New 
York architect, who disappeared from his home on Riverside 
Drive yesterday, walked into the home of his uncle in 
Washington, D. C, this morning and said that he was almost 
starved. The boy was chilled to the bone, since, in the course 
of his adventures, he had sold his overcoat to buy a steam-boat 
ticket to Europe. 

The lad was highly pleased when he learned that his dis- 

^New York Times, January 31, 1909. 

* Saint Louis Globe-Democrat, January 29, 1912. 



THE SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE 15 

appearance had aroused fears that he had gone to the East 
Side and fallen into the clutches of the Black Hand, and his 
expression indicated that he would have done just that if he 
had thought of it. 

What he had done, however, was to leave New York for 
the purpose of seeing the world. He reached Philadelphia 
yesterday. But the city did not suit him, so he decided to go 
to Europe. He walked down to the wharves and priced out- 
bound passage. A ticket, he discovered, cost more money 
than he had, so he sold his overcoat to make up the difference. 
Then he marched aboard, only to be held up by the captain, 
questioned, and sent ashore. 

He then started for Washington, where he arrived late last 
night. Wandering around near the Union Station — he seems 
at first to have had no idea of appealing to his relatives — he 
came to the house of the captain of the Senate Office Build- 
ing police force and asked for a room. He was taken in, but 
the officer became suspicious and questions followed. The 
boy then told of his adventures, and early this morning, on 
the advice of his new friend, the boy took a trolley for his 
uncle's home.^ 

When opportunity for adventures of a legitimate 
and wholesome sort is not given, city life, cheap 
novels, and low-grade shows have their way of 
supplying the deficiency, and the racial instincts 
may then culminate in actions much more serious 
than running away from home to lead a frontier 
life, sending Black-Hand letters, or flourishing an 
empty revolver. The following are illustrations: 

Case I. — The arrest of five boys, one of whom was ten years 
old, two others twelve, while the fourth and fifth were four- 
teen and nineteen, revealed the attempt of these youngsters 
last Saturday to wreck the early New Haven Railroad train 

^ New York Times, January 22, 1912. 



16 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

leaving New York shortly after noon. The purpose, as they 
confessed, was to loot the bodies of the dead and injured. 
They got as far as opening the switch, near the East Port- 
chester freight yard, having either found or stolen the key. 

That their plan did not succeed was due to the fact that a 
switchman happened to see them throw the switch and closed 
it in time to avert an accident. 

The train they wanted to wreck carries one of the special 
club cars on which travel a score or more of multi-millionaires 
who have homes either in Greenwich or Stamford and who 
come out early on Saturdays. 

The probation officers and prosecuting attorney stood 
aghast this morning when one of the boys coolly told of the 
plot and stated that the reason of the attempted crime was 
the hope of getting a few dollars from the pockets of the dead 
and wounded. 

The boys further told of having formed a regular organiza- 
tion which imposed elaborate oaths of secrecy and a part of 
whose formula consisted in crossing their hearts never to tell 
any of the deeds that any member of the gang perpetrated. 
These oaths did not interfere with theiijidesire to confess when 
they had once been thoroughly frightened. 

The crime, the boys said, was inspired by a moving-picture 
show that portrayed a train hold-up.^ 

Case 2. — A thirteen-year-old boy from the Bronx, having 
learned from a moving-picture show the first steps in burglary, 
went out on Saturday night with a brace and bit to gather in 
some candy for himself and friends. He had his eye on a candy 
store in the East Chester Station of the New York, New Haven 
and Hartford Railroad. He bored holes all around the lock 
of the door and then cut it out. Loading himself with eight 
dollars' worth of candy he withdrew. 

A detective of the Westchester Station, who had been as- 
signed to the case, found a plethora of candy in the morning 
and learned that the youngster had given it to his friends. 
The boy was at home when the officer reached there. Upon 

* Saint Louis Post-Dispatch, March i, 19 lo. 



THE SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE 17 

arrest for juvenile delinquency he told the detective that he 
got his idea of burglary from an East Chester moving-picture 
show.^ 

Case 3. — Classes at the Humboldt and Assumption schools 
were excited Tuesday when policemen entered and arrested 
two boys, one thirteen years of age and the other eleven, who 
were accused of stealing seventy-five dollars from a grocery 
store Sunday afternoon. 

The boys confessed and implicated another boy fifteen years 
old. He was arrested at his home, where something over forty- 
five dollars was found concealed in a mustard bottle in the 
attic. 

The boys gained entrance through the back door of the 
grocery, which was guarded by an iron bar. 

The thirteen-year-old lad bought a pair of roller-skates and 
a camera, and hired a buggy in which he took a girl driving 
Sunday afternoon. Four dollars in pennies, which he dis- 
dained to spend, he gave to a small boy. 

The boys are locked up at the Soulard Street Station.^ 

Case 4. — Two small boys, one thirteen years of 
age and the other nine, were arrested in New York 
and sent to the Children's Society, charged with 
having sent a *' Black-Hand" letter to a wealthy 
woman. The letter was as follows: 

We demand $2,500 as a Black Hand organization. If it is 
not paid we will blow up your home and all your family. We 
have four hundred and eighty-eight members scattered all 
over the world. You cannot escape us. Don't let the police 
know of this, or any one else, for, if you do, we will not let up 
on you if you offer us $100,000. Rich people pay our demands, 
and they have no more bother, because we protect them. Do 
as we ask or we will blow up your home and destroy every one 
in it with revolver or dagger, or send them poisoned food. 

' New York Times, June 6, 1910. 

* Saint Louis Post-Dispatch, March 24, 1908. 



18 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

There was a break in the letter here to make 
room for the picture of a dagger-pierced heart, a 
revolver, and a bottle marked "poison." Then 
the letter continued: 

After you pay ^2,500 you will be free from all expense. 
Take twenty-five $100 bills on Thursday evening, between 
8 and 9 p. M. Deposit the money in a tin box and place it 
under some leaves on the ground close to the park wall at the 
first light post at the right hand of the small entrance to Cen- 
tral Park, between Sixty-sixth and Sixty-seventh Streets, op- 
posite your house, and let it stay there till you get a letter 
from us that we received it. 

Black Hand. 

On the advice of detectives the woman decided 
to carry out the instructions. Disguised officers 
were to follow her. 

Shortly before nine o'clock last night she stepped from her 
house, crossed Fifth Avenue to the park, and deposited a tin 
box under some leaves by the park wall. The detectives 
watched her until she returned to the house. Then from be- 
hind the park wall they took up their vigil. It was some min- 
utes after nine o'clock before they were rewarded by seeing 
two boys walk down Fifth Avenue and poke beneath the 
leaves. Finally the larger boy came upon the box and to- 
gether the youngsters started off on Fifth Avenue. 

The detectives followed them for a block or so and then 
pounced upon the two, separating them immediately so that 
they could not converse and neither one could hear what 
questions were asked of the other. The smaller boy wept 
bitterly as he felt the officer's hand on his shoulder and began 
to scream and cry for his mother. The elder boy, who still 
clutched the box, took his arrest stoically. 

"What's in the box, kid?" asked the detective of the elder 
boy. 



THE SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE 19 

"I don't know what's In it," replied the lad. "A man I 
met at Seventeenth Street and Third Avenue offered me a 
quarter to come and get this for him." 

"What did he look like.?" asked the officer. 

"Why, he was a tall man with a black mustache." 

The other officer meantime was asking the same questions 
of the younger boy, and got the same replies until he asked for 
a description of the man. 

"He looks just like you," whimpered the little chap. 

This officer had no mustache. Convinced also by the actions 
of the boys that they had written the letter, the detectives 
took them to the Children's Society. 

The older boy had a lot of cigarette pictures, such as come 
in packages of certain brands of cigarettes, and a list of dime 
novels, blood-thirsty ones, to judge by their titles. He was 
anything but blood-thirsty himself, however, when he was 
ushered into the society's rooms.* 

Case 5. — Two brothers, ten and fifteen years old, respec- 
tively, were arrested in an Illinois town by a deputy sheriff 
on a charge of placing an obstruction on a railroad track to 
wreck a train. 

It is alleged they put twenty large spikes between the ends 
of two rails, wedged in such a manner that they would in all 
probability have wrecked a fast passenger train which was 
due but a few minutes from the time the spikes were dis- 
covered. 

A workman saw the boys running away and discov- 
ered the obstruction, which was a short distance above 
the depot at Loraine. He removed the spikes and reported 
the matter. 

There was snow on the ground and the boys were tracked 
to their place of concealment.^ 

Case 6. — Many daring burglaries in Pittsburg are charged 
against three brothers, the youngest seven years old and the 
oldest under fifteen, who are now locked up in the South Side 

' New York Times, February 25, 1909. 

' Saint Louis Post-Dispatch, March 2, 1908. 



20 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

Police Station. For two days policemen had been tracing 
them. 

Eight Mount Washington homes are said to have been 
entered by them during the last three nights. Much valuable 
booty was secured and hidden away in the dark recesses of 
an abandoned coal mine just across the Monongahela River 
from Pittsburg. There they lived like brigands and planned 
their night attacks on South Side houses. 

Partly burned candles, with which they had lighted their 
rendezvous, food, knives, bayonets, and swords were among 
the things found by the police when they searched the cave.^ 

While adventures that girls seek are usually 
different from those enjoyed by boys, still this sex 
differentiation does not always occur in early girl- 
hood, as is shown by the following press cHppings: 

Case I. — A woman, whose home is in Marion, Illinois, has 
asked the chief of police to assist her in finding her daughter, 
fourteen years old, who disappeared from her home a week 
ago, after telling some of her girl friends that she proposed 
to become a female detective. The girl took twenty-three 
dollars in cash with her. 

Just before she left home she wrote to her best girl friend 
and told her of her intentions. After she arrived in Saint 
Louis, she mailed another postal card to her chum, but there 
was no indication of where the girl was living in this city. 

The conductor of the train on which the girl came to Saint 
Louis told the police that she represented herself to be an 
orphan and said that she was on her way to visit an aunt. 
She paid her fare and the conductor gave her no special 
attention.* 

Case 2. — A twelve-year-old girl, the daughter of a well-to-do 
brick mason, confessed yesterday in the Children's Court that, 

1 New York Times, June 28, 19 10. 
' Saint Louis Post-Dispatch. 



THE SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE 21 

twice during the week, she had set fire to the apartment house 
in which she lived. The reason which she gave was that she 
had seen such things pictured on the screen of a Bronx 
moving-picture theatre. 

The child admitted that it was she who had written a 
threatening letter which was found tied to the door-knob of 
her father's apartment, and in which she demanded fifty- 
dollars as the price needed to keep her from burning up the 
house and everybody in it. She also laid the Black Hand part 
of her scheme to moving pictures. 

On Monday a fire was started in some rubbish that had been 
placed by the girl in the hallway on the second floor. The 
fire was discovered by a tenant, and was extinguished without 
the aid of the firemen. The next day a second fire was started 
near the same place. Again the tenants were able to put it 
out before the firemen arrived. 

The tenants realized that an incendiary was at work and 
were greatly concerned, many of them remaining up all night 
Tuesday to watch. The police were notified, as was also the 
fire marshal. A detective was assigned to the case, and early 
Wednesday morning he went to the house with the fire marshal 
to investigate. 

The father of the child turned over to them a letter which 
he had found tied to his door-knob that morning. The letter 
read: 

"If you don't put fifty dollars under the door-mat we will 
burn your home and everybody in it. 

" Black Hand." 

The detective saw that the letter was in the handwriting 
of a child, and he questioned every child in the apartment 
house. When it came little Ethel's turn to be quizzed she 
at first denied the authorship, but when she was shown that 
she wrote the same kind of a hand as that in which the letter 
was written she broke down and confessed. 

"I saw a moving picture in which there was a fire and 
people were rescued," the child sobbed, "and I also saw one 
where the Black Hand tried to get money. I don't know 
why I did it, but I did not mean to do wrong." 



22 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

The parents of the child were the most surprised of all the 
tenants at the confession.^ 



Case 3. — Two girl highway robbers are being sought by 
the police of Newark for holding up a number of young girls 
on the street and taking money from them. 

Both the girl bandits are described as about fifteen years 
old, well dressed, and pretty. For the past several nights the 
young robbers have been operating through the streets of 
Newark in the crowded district of Broad and Market Streets. 
Their victims in every instance were children who were sent 
on errands with money. 

One of the girls held the victim while the other tore her 
pocket-book from her hand. The girl who took the purse ex- 
tracted the money, threw the pocket-book in the owner's face, 
and walked away.^ 

Case 4. — A girl, thirteen years old, is in jail at Cuyahoga 
Falls, charged with attempted bank robbery. She will be 
brought to the county jail to-night. This afternoon she en- 
tered the Falls Savings Bank armed with a revolver. She 
asked for the cashier, but he was out, and the assistant was 
in charge. She sat in the outer office for a few moments, then 
approached the man at the window, and, levelling the gun at 
his head, said: 

"Give me the money in those vaults." 

The man was startled, but replied that the vaults were 
closed and he could not open them. 

"Then give me what you have in your pockets," was her 
next demand. 

"I have no money," he answered. 

Disappointed, the young bank robber hesitated, backed to 
the door, and started down the street on the run. She was 
arrested later by a policeman. 

The girl lives at the Falls and is of a respectable family. 

^New York Times, July 15, 1910. 

' New York World, September 3, 1906. 



THE SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE 23 

She has been impatient of parental restraint and is fond of 
Wild West literature.^ 

Case 5. — A girl fourteen years of age wound up an exciting 
escapade of two days at Niles, Michigan, this afternoon by 
calmly going to sleep, after she had been locked up, charged 
with horse-stealing. She had given her parents and friends a 
terrible fright. 

Stimulated only by cookies and confections and her own 
lively imagination, the young miss carried through her lark 
with a high-handed disregard for consequences. She rented 
a horse and buggy at a Niles livery, after running away from 
home yesterday. Then she made a round of several bakery 
shops and confectionery stores and loaded the buggy with 
pies, cakes, and candies. Thus provisioned, she started out 
to see the country. 

She drove seven miles to Buchanan before nightfall. Near 
Buchanan she stabled her horse and spent a comfortable night 
at a farm-house, after inventing a story to satisfy the farmer 
that she was not a runaway. 

To-day she resumed her trip, stopping occasionally to rest 
her horse and to open a fresh bag of sweets. By the middle 
of the afternoon she had covered the thirty miles between 
Buchanan and Michigan City. 

"I don't care," the girl remarked, when told that a telegram 
had been sent her father. "I certainly have had the time of 
my life." 

When her father and an officer from Niles arrived here to- 
night they found the child asleep. She was taken reluctantly 
home an hour later.* 

The following are more typical of girls' advent- 
ures, representing, as they do, their desire to do — 
or pretend to do — the thing that makes them 
socially conspicuous in their set. In the first in- 

' Saint Louis Republic, July 12, 191 1. 
^New York Times, August 12, 191 1. 



24 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

stance it was automobiling. This also illustrates 
the enjoyment which girls experience in finery. 
The story of having been kidnapped was invented 
to account for the possession of an automobile 
dress which the child had purchased after long 
economy. Besides the enjoyment which she her- 
self would derive from the dress, though she might 
never have an opportunity to ride in an automo- 
bile, its possession, together with suitable stories, 
would enable her to boast to her playmates about 
her rides. After purchasing the dress, however, 
she found it necessary to account to her parents 
for such a useless garment. How she did this will 
be seen in the following newspaper account: 

Case I. — Numbered trading-stamps led to the collapse of 
the remarkable fiction, worthy of a moving-picture dramatist, 
by which a girl of twelve explained her absence from home 
from Monday morning until Tuesday morning. She wrote a 
confession Wednesday and signed it in the presence of her 
mother and detectives, in which she declared the story of 
being kidnapped in an automobile by two men to be a pure 
fabrication, conceived by her own imagination. 

Trading-stamps were found in her possession on her return 
to her home, and she explained them by saying they were given 
with a cheap automobile dress and veil which the men by 
whom she was supposed to have been kidnapped purchased 
for her. 

From the number on the stamps it was learned that the 
sale was made at a certain large department store, and the 
clerk remembered that the girl made the purchases herself. 
She now admits she bought the dress and veil with money 
she had saved during several months. 



THE SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE 25 

She says that she invented the story to excuse her truancy 
from school. The narrative was crammed with thrills. It 
began on her way to school, when an automobile panted up 
beside the pavement, and a man sprang out, gagged her with 
a handkerchief, and bundled her into the machine. His com- 
panion in the automobile poured a liquid on the handkerchief, 
which she knew was chloroform, because it put her to sleep. 

She awoke in a West End lodging house, according to her 
story, and the men were with her. They then chloroformed 
her again. She awoke in the morning and the new clothes 
were given to her. 

The men discarded the automobile for a storm buggy and 
drove her to Union Station, telling her she was to be taken to 
Chicago and would never see Saint Louis again. 

Not until she was on the train did she succeed in eluding 
them, by pretending to want a drink and slipping out of the 
car while on the errand.* 

Another instance which was reported to the 
writer is exceedingly interesting in the wealth of 
fancy woven into the play as it was acted by the 
girl. 

Case 2. — The girl was sixteen years of age. She was the 
daughter of respectable, hard-working parents. Her father 
kept a small shop and by frugality and close attention to 
business maintained his family in comfortable circumstances 
and sent his children to school. The town was so large that 
the school children knew nothing about the home life of many 
of their associates. This enabled the daughter to weave the 
following exhilarating romance into her life. 

Her father and mother, the girl told her school associates, 
spent most of their time in Europe. When they were not 
travelling abroad they lived in their summer cottage in 
Michigan, and, by way of helping the imagination of her 

* Saint Louis Post-Dispatch, March 2, 19 lo. 



26 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

friends to picture her luxury, she showed photographs which 
she had purchased of a pretty summer cottage. 

She arranged a girls' box party at the theatre, at her own 
expense, and invited one of the teachers to accompany them 
as chaperon. The money to defray the expenses was skilfully 
purloined from the till of her father's shop which she was 
required to tend after close of school. Of course, her guests 
must be supplied with flowers, but this caused no serious diffi- 
culty, as a relative kept a greenhouse in which she was fre- 
quently left alone. The box party became somewhat complex, 
however, because she could only tell her family that she was 
going to the theatre, and her mother, naturally, could not 
allow her to go alone. But she was equal to the emergency 
and proposed that her older sister accompany her. On their 
arrival she told her sister that one of the teachers was giving 
a box party and had invited her to sit with them. She then 
joined her school friends and chaperon in the box. 

Of course, the romance would not have been complete 
without a devoted young admirer. So she gave her girl 
friends the name of one of the officers of the street railway 
company, which she found on a transfer. Occasionally she 
pointed him out, always selecting some young man who was 
just disappearing in the distance. She also displayed flowers 
which he had sent to her, roses that she had secretly taken 
from the greenhouse of her relative. Several times she said 
that he had invited her to take a drive with him and had told 
her to ask a girl friend to accompany them. A sudden mes- 
sage, however, invariably called him back to business, and 
his disappearing form was always pointed out. Meanwhile 
he had left the horse and carriage — which she had hired with 
money taken from her father's money drawer — in front of the 
school building. 

It was a pretty little play of an imaginative, 
adolescent girl who found the monotony of tend- 
ing shop and doing housework inadequate to her 
romantic years. Of course, she was discovered at 



THE SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE 27 

last and her parents, in chagrin, withdrew her from 
school. She is now watching the shop again, a 
quiet, sedate young woman. 

We judge acts according to the standardized 
estimate of the worth or execrability of the deed, 
and for that reason we are usually mistaken in 
our judgment. Were ethics so simple it would 
never have become so perplexing as to require 
volumes to elucidate a theory with as many more 
for its refutation. Life is entanglingly complex. 
Traditions, beliefs arising in the social and relig- 
ious institutions of the past, and racial vestiges 
which express themselves in instinctive tendencies, 
combat one another with their contradictions, to 
puzzle the thoughtful and obscure the right course 
of action. To the unthinking, life is all quite plain, 
or at any rate easily defined. "Don't fear to ax 
for what you want," said John Bloom. ^ "There's 
no rule against axing. There's no rule anywhere, 
an' good an' bad's a toss up. You may pull a 
prize out of your life — or you may not. Every- 
thing's run by chance, according to the plan of 
Providence." 

The very fact that unmitigated condemnation 
of these attempts at adventure presupposes under- 
lying simplicity of impulse is alone sufficient to 
throw doubt upon the correctness of the judgment. 

1 "The Secret Woman," by Eden Phillpotts. 



28 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

The motives leading to human action are never 
simple, and they rarely reveal themselves to super- 
ficial observers. This is the reason for the rule of 
skilful detectives never to accept the simple expla- 
nation of a crime. "Always distrust appearances; 
believe precisely the contrary of what appears 
true, or even probable," said Tirauclair to the 
young Lecoq. 

In trying to ascertain whether love for the wild 
and the spirit of adventure have any racial justi- 
fication for existence, it is first necessary to ex- 
amine the attitude of young children toward cer- 
tain natural phenomena. This was briefly done, 
and investigations in support of the position were 
cited in an earlier part of this chapter. Such 
racial justification having been discovered, educa- 
tion must take account of the fact and provide 
for the gratification of these instincts, because 
they represent the first break from the animal 
cunning of man's arboreal ancestors — nature's first 
attempt at something higher than brute ethics — 
as well as for the reason that if allowed to mature 
without control, these instincts retain all their 
primitive non-social or anti-social characteristics. 

On the other hand, if the education of boys is 
so planned as to furnish an outlet for this racial 
energy through sports and serious activities that 
involve social relations, while still satisfying the 



THE SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE 29 

craving for excitement and adventure, these same 
instincts then become powerful educative forces. 
As the psychical characteristics by which early 
man maintained his existence and gained suprem- 
acy over the beasts from which these traits alone 
separated him, they are the beginning of human 
mind and the source of all positive, modern virtues. 
In judging the behavior of children it is impor- 
tant to remember that the higher cerebral centres 
are just beginning to secure the control which at 
maturity should be theirs. Primitive impulses are 
still rampant. Principles of conduct do not yet 
possess the boy. The racial mind is contending for 
supremacy with modern ethics and culture. Even 
in the adult this control of the higher centres is at 
times relaxed, and then the unrelenting fierceness 
of our early ancestors reveals itself in all its cruelty. 
Illustrations are almost superfluous. During the 
French Revolution men carried away the hearts of 
their victims as proof of their prowess, and exhib- 
ited as trophies the heads which had been hacked 
off with pocket-knives. Lest these acts may be 
thought characteristic of a peculiar people in an 
earlier, less thoughtful age, the writer may, per- 
haps, be pardoned for recalling the brutal fight for 
souvenirs over the dead body of aeronaut John- 
stone, at Denver, Colorado, November 17, 1910. 
"One of the broken wooden stays had gone almost 



30 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

through Johnstone's body. Before doctors or po- 
lice could reach the scene, one man had torn this 
splinter from the body and run away, carrying his 
trophy with the aviator's blood still dripping from 
its ends. Frantic, the crowd tore away the canvas 
from over his body and fought for the gloves that 
had protected his hands from the cold." ^ 

Such acts as these, revolting as they are, do not 
necessarily indicate degeneracy. They show the 
ancient savage let loose in modern man, and when 
that happens the veneer of culture and altruism 
acquired during the comparatively few years of 
civilization cannot restrain the brute. Gaining 
trophies is one way of emitting glory, and there 
was Httle that primitive man would not do or give 
for this distinction. The Indians' enjoyment of 
scalping was due less to the delights of torture — for 
they knew ways of producing more exquisite suf- 
fering — than to the satisfaction of securing tro- 
phies, and the modern souvenir mania has the 
same psychical basis. 

Fortunately, cruelty is not the aspect of the 
racial mind which causes most concern for children. 
With them it is oftener the careless unconcern 
about the more serious matters of life, and the in- 
satiable longing of the primitive soul for something 
new and exciting. Like savages, children are both 

* Saint Louis Globe-Democrat, November i8, 1910. 



THE SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE 31 

readily entertained and easily bored. Life must 
be spirited or they will break its bounds and find 
their own adventures. This was the motive in 
the instances cited in the early part of this chapter, 
and it was the cause of the following interesting 
little adventure : 

The "Cave Club," as it is called, has been unearthed by 
the truant officer. The cave was built a month ago by four 
youngsters ranging in age from eight to twelve, to shelter 
them from the cold during the winter months so they would 
not have to stay indoors. When built it was about eight 
feet square. Yesterday morning the boys enlarged it on 
account of the increasing membership, which now totals 
eleven. 

The cave is provided with chairs, benches, stove, and lamps, 
while the dirt walls are covered with pictures. It looks very 
comfortable, and will provide a warm place during the cold 
afternoons. If one did not know of the cave it would be hard 
to find. It was dug in the yellow clay, and after the top was 
laid with heavy boards it was covered with dirt. The stove- 
pipe just reaches the level of the roof and can be seen only 
from a short distance. 

The three boys who were in the cave yesterday afternoon 
said they played hookey sometimes and had used the cave as 
a hiding place while they were working on it, but now that they 
have it completed they are not going to play hookey any more, 
as they are afraid they will be found out and the cave de- 
stroyed.^ 

The problem, then, seems to be to give boys the 
adventures which they crave without encouraging 
reversion to the primitive, ancestral type. There 
is abundant evidence that this can be done, but 

* Saint Louis Globe-Democrat, November 22, 19 10. 



32 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

the most striking instance, perhaps, is that of the 
Boy Scouts. The success of this movement has 
been so remarkable that the enthusiasm which it 
creates must spring from deeper sources than those 
that supply the transitory interest in many ac- 
tivities. What has worked the miracle of making 
boys willing to give up their old Ufe of lying, and 
stealing, and running away from school? Some 
have thought it the uniform. "Stick a boy into 
a uniform," they say, "and you can do anything 
with him." Can you? Try a prison garb and see 
what happens. It is what the uniform stands for 
that determines its effect. Plan a piece of work so 
that it will involve some physical activity and 
authority. It does not much matter what the 
work is. Then gather together a few boys, tell 
them that you need their help, put responsibility 
on them, and they are ready for business. 

Not long ago, about half a dozen urchins were 
making hfe miserable for the fruit venders and 
street-car conductors in a crowded district of one 
of our cities. Car windows were broken, conductors 
stoned, and fruit was stolen. The policemen were 
powerless, because the boys vanished immediately 
after committing the offence. A young man in the 
neighborhood said that he would stop the disturb- 
ances if the poUce department would agree not to 
prosecute the offenders when they were caught. 



THE SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE 33 

The chief smiled compassionately at his innocence, 
but, being helpless, he let him have his way. A 
club, called "The Boys' Protective Society," was 
organized from the lads of the neighborhood. The 
members met once a week in a rented hall, played 
games, and organized for their work. One night 
the leader of the gang of toughs was caught in 
the act of overturning a fruit stand. As it was a 
choice between arrest and accompanying his cap- 
tors he yielded. Indeed, the whole affair struck 
him as rather entertaining. It certainly was an 
easy way to escape a night in jail. He was taken 
to the hall and messengers were at once despatched 
to summon the members of the club. A court was 
organized and the prisoner found guilty. The 
question of punishment was a serious problem, 
and the captive, understanding their perplexity, 
smiled in derision. But the boys were equal to 
the situation and sentenced him to be an "outcast." 
They told him that they would not play with him, 
that they would not even speak to him on the 
street. He said he didn't care, and went out with 
a very haughty air. The next day, Saturday, the 
boys of the neighborhood gathered for their usual 
base-ball game on a vacant lot. While they were 
organizing for the game the prisoner of the night 
before arrived and was at once chosen by the leader 
of one of the sides, who was not a club member. 



34 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

The boys belonging to the club then left the field. 
Only two remained to keep the "outcast" com- 
pany, and they were not members of the club. 
At the next meeting of the society the following 
note from the former prisoner was presented: 
"If yez will let me jin yer club I won't do nothing 
any more and will play yer way." He was elected 
to membership and at the next meeting he brought 
three of his old associates and begged that they be 
admitted. From that time fruit dealers and car 
conductors had peace. 

There is no inconsistency in boys trading mis- 
demeanors for social service, provided the latter 
is equally virile. The destructive, anti-social im- 
pulses express the racial need for self-assertion, 
for aggressive action. Paradoxical as it may seem, 
with boys destruction is construction. They are 
trying out a plan of campaign against their ene- 
mies. It is not always necessary that the "enemy" 
shall have committed unfriendly acts, since boys 
look upon adults as a peculiar people who are try- 
ing to coerce them into actions against which their 
racial instincts rebel. They want to do things 
which show their power, and the most natural ob- 
ject against which they can pit their resources is 
that strangely unnatural creature, civilized man, 
whose occupations are so tame and uneventful, 
and who always cries, "Peace! Peace!" They are 



THE SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE 35 

living through the period of the race when survival 
depends upon eternal vigilance and ceaseless ac- 
tivity. But action is the one thing which is left 
out of account in the home and school. Naturally, 
then, children find their own field of operations, 
and since primitive instincts, when undirected, 
tend to reinstate the life of our savage ancestors, 
conflict with modern civilization ensues. 

We have said that the fundamental problem in 
training boys consists in furnishing adventures 
without encouraging reversion. The club of Boy 
Scouts does this, both by the suggestion given in 
the name and by the demand for readiness to act 
in emergencies. Adventures need not be spectac- 
ular to meet the requirements. Boys will tramp 
through the woods with guns, without firing a shot, 
until ready to drop from exhaustion, and enjoy 
every minute. The imagination helps amazingly, 
provided it has something to work upon. Scout- 
ing is the cue for countless racial reminiscences. 
Though the uniform is not necessary, it furthers the 
play of the imagination. The "adventures" that 
come with emergency calls, as well as those which 
the adolescent mind easily thinks into drill exer- 
cises of a military sort, give the boys opportunity 
to show oflF. All of this appeals to the racial in- 
stincts, and whatever has their support draws its 
power from an exhaustless reservoir of energy. 



36 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

Social virtues, which boys honestly intend to prac- 
tise some day, when they reach the dry, spiritless 
age of their teachers and parents, now acquire the 
irresistible force of race enthusiasm. They are 
thrifty, and truthful, and studious, because these 
virtues are a part of the Scout's honor. 

Organization into scouts is not the only means 
of transforming racial tendencies into educative 
forces. Responsibility, freedom to manage things, 
is what boys want. All sorts of racial emotions 
cluster around the idea of authority. The teacher 
may suggest, but the suggestion must be so subtle 
that the children think the plan their own. Then 
it takes possession of them and they carry it out 
with the same vigor that animates their play. 

The nervous system is much like other complex 
machinery. Sometimes it gives results and again 
it does not work. With children the chief disturb- 
ances in the running of the nervous machinery are 
inhibitions and vagrant nervous currents. Inhibi- 
tions are the child's protest against the neglect of 
his deepest instincts. Boys require action, with 
freedom to initiate and discover; yet they are com- 
pelled to learn dreary facts which have no meaning 
for them. Often the work is wholly fruitless in 
the opinion of the teacher as well. One school 
with which the writer is familiar has given up 
formal grammar because it was found profitless, 



THE SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE 37 

and another, for the same reason, has abandoned 
geography. But it is a commentary on educational 
intelHgence that a third class, turned loose in these 
subjects, asked so many questions and became so 
excited over their discoveries that the teacher had 
difficulty in keeping their pace. If there were no 
adventures here, the children, at all events, were 
not suppressed, and their instinct to investigate 
and display their knowledge was not curbed by the 
limitations of the course of study. Perhaps they 
were interested in verbs before mastering nouns, 
but in learning that something was done they soon 
discovered that some one had to do it. Geography 
literally drove the teacher to the swamps. And 
here the boys found real adventures. Hardly had 
school closed before they were off to the woods and 
streams. When they came back they were loaded 
with mud and information. Boys who had played 
truant could not be driven away from school. One 
who had been suspended for a serious offence 
begged, instead, for a whipping, so that he might 
not fall behind the other boys. The class session 
was the clearing-house for the information. Here, 
under the guidance of their teacher, they compared 
notes and learned the meaning of what they had 
discovered. 

Evidently inhibitions and vagrant nervous im- 
pulses are not a necessary part of even the school- 



38 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

boy. He will be active, he insists upon adventures, 
and he is bound to show off. Yet these are the 
very qualities which the school suppresses. The 
objection may be raised that the school was not 
organized to provide adventures. The reply to 
this is, first, that it is the duty of the schools to 
educate, and second, that teachers should make 
use of every means to improve their own energy- 
efficiency. Both of these statements are sufficiently 
commonplace to be acceptable. Our forefathers 
acted upon them when the teachers and pupils 
went into the woods for their occasional outing, 
to gather a fresh supply of birch switches. The 
schools have abandoned the rod as a promoter of 
educational efficiency, but they have put nothing, 
except sentimentality, in its place. Now, we have 
found racial instincts to be a tremendous force in 
the life of boys, driving them on in search of situa- 
tions which shall satisfy the functional nervous 
craving for adventure. It is the law of the race, 
written in the blood and fibre of the youth. 

I am not advocating turning study into play, nor 
roaming woods and fields in search of mere excite- 
ment. I do insist, however, that we have here a 
group of racial instincts available for the teacher 
who cares to increase his efficiency. If this view 
is correct, it is quite as unintelligent to ignore these 
instincts as for an efficiency engineer to overlook 



THE SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE 39 

losses that might be converted into useful energy. 
For these impulses are either with the educative 
process or against it. The problem is to direct 
them into new channels which make for mental 
and moral development, instead of allowing them 
to run the more natural, easier course of truancy, 
cheap shows, and dance-halls. The practical ques- 
tion in the problem is: Can these racial instincts 
be utilized in the educative process.'' Will the plan 
work? In answering these questions it is only 
necessary to show that it has worked with a suffi- 
ciently large number of pupils gathered from the 
usual varied surroundings of public-school children. 
If, in addition, we can show that the plan works 
under less favorable conditions than those which 
commonly characterize public schools, the argu- 
ment is so much the stronger. It is not necessary 
to prove that every teacher can win to his support 
the native instincts of boys, any more than in 
demonstrating the efficiency of steam one must 
show that every man can manage an engine. In 
both cases the thing to do is to find some one who 
understands his job. 

We have already noted several instances in 
which racial instincts were advantageously used 
for development. These cases were introduced to 
illustrate the amazing possibilities of primitive 
impulses as educative forces. The scout idea, it 



40 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

may be objected, does not fit school conditions. 
For this reason, if the school is to avail itself of 
these instincts it remains to be shown that they 
may be used to promote self-control among pupils 
and improve the quality of work in the class. To 
this, then, we now turn. 



CHAPTER II 
THE WAYS OF YOUTH 

It happened about two years ago in a country 
school. The building was perched on the top of 
a desolate hill, midway between two groups of 
farms which extended long distances in every 
direction except in that which led to the school. 
The httle red house looked as though it had been 
dropped by a cyclone, so incongruous were the sur- 
roundings. Yet the patrons would have placed 
the building on another planet, to give each equal 
distances, could they but have bridged the chasm. 
Then they would never have visited it except to 
dismiss the teacher. But their jealousy was only 
human. It is self-satisfying to possess privileges 
even if we never derive advantage from them. 

One teacher had been dismissed because she 
asked for an assistant that she might have more 
time to study in preparation for her classes. Being 
very practical people, these farmers wanted the 
best. They knew just what a good teacher should 
be, and, as usual, the desirable qualities included 
everything which the former teachers lacked. It 
is strange how all the bad qualities are combined 

41 



42 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

in those whom we know, and all the virtues united 
in one for whom we are always vainly searching. 
At all events, one who had not yet learned her 
lessons was not up to the standard of these prac- 
tical people. It set a bad example to the chil- 
dren, they said. What is the use of going to school 
if one must be forever studying? 

One teacher after another came — and suddenly 
left. The big boys managed that. Like their par- 
ents, they had their ideals and they had not yet 
found the one they wanted. Boys are rather par- 
ticular in their preferences. The plan of dis- 
missal was usually left to the biggest boy in the 
school. Joe was something of an artist in his 
way, and he prided himself upon his dehcate touch. 
He always managed to be hard at work when the 
disturbance which he had arranged occurred. 
Then he appeared as the champion of the small 
boy whom he was using as a decoy. It was 
pleasant to be looked upon as the defender of the 
oppressed. The child was not to blame and the 
teacher punished him because he was little. That 
was the way in which Joe put it to his associates 
and parents. 

A new teacher was to take charge in the morning 
and the boys were looking forward to the event. 
The change always relieved the monotony. Joe 
went early, because, hke a good general, he wanted 



THE WAYS OF YOUTH 43 

to look the ground over. He entered the building 
with his hat on, by way of showing his familiarity 
with the place, and found himself face to face with 
a pleasant-looking girl who was putting the room 
in order. 

"Good-morning," she said, smiling as she went 
on with her work. 

Joe squirmed, standing first on one leg and then 
on the other, and finally took off his hat. The 
teacher looked hardly older than himself, and it 
was more than the defender of the oppressed could 
stand to see her working without offering assist- 
ance. 

"Shan't I help you?" he asked. 

"Yes, if you will, please. Then we can finish 
before the children come." 

It was a great rehef to have something to do 
with his hands. Curiosity also brought others 
early, and great was their amazement to meet 
Joe at the door putting the finishing touches to 
cleaning the black-board erasers. 

"She's such a little thing," he said apologet- 
ically, "and besides, she's a girl." 

Of course, every one wanted to help. What- 
ever Joe did was all right. So, in a moment they 
were all at work filling ink-wells and clearing out 
the papers which were wadded into the desks. 

"There, I guess that will do for this morning," 



44 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

said the teacher. "Now, let's take our seats and 
get ready for work." 

Joe sat down and took out his book. He was 
too much flustered to do anything else. 

There was a mysterious silence during the day, 
broken only by the work of the recitations. Joe 
studied, or pretended to, because he was trying to 
recover himself. It contradicted his notion of fair 
play to annoy one with whom he had just been 
working on terms of equality. Besides, she had 
set him apart from the others when she said, "We 
can finish before the children come." At any rate, 
he would wait until to-morrow, he thought to him- 
self, before starting the fun. 

At the close of school the teacher asked Joe to 
stop a minute. As the others left, the lad ap- 
proached the desk and stood with his hands dan- 
gling helplessly, wondering why he had consented 
to wait, and with half a mind to run out the door. 

"Day after to-morrow is Saturday, Joe, and I 
want to take you all down to the creek to show you 
how geography is made." 

"I didn't know it was made. I thought it was 
just writ," replied Joe. 

"We will see when we get to the creek. But I 
must have some help. There are more children 
than I can take care of alone, and then, too, I shall 
need some one to help show the others all the 



THE WAYS OF YOUTH 45 

things that are to be seen, so I want you to help 
me. 

This was a new situation for Joe, but he had 
never yet refused an appeal for aid. He had posed 
so long as the champion of those who needed as- 
sistance that he had come to think himself quite 
virtuous. Besides, it fitted into his feelings of 
superiority that he should be selected to assist in 
instructing the others. Of course, he consented. 
Any big boy would. 

The anticipated events of the following day did 
not occur. Joe was trying to think the thing out. 
He knew the boys expected something to happen, 
but again his idea of a square deal interfered. 
He had been chosen to help teach the others on 
the excursion. He could not begin by making 
trouble. 

"She don't just boss you around and tell you 
to get to work," he said apologetically at recess. 
"She treats a feller as though he had some sense." 

Saturday afternoon the children returned from 
their tramp loaded with specimens for the next 
week's study. That evening when Joe sat down 
with a book which his teacher had lent him, he 
remarked to his wondering parents: 

"Those boys don't know nothing. It's a big 
job to help teach 'em, and a feller's got to work." 

This is putting the responsibility for discipline 



46 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

and work upon the children, where it belongs. The 
teacher is left free to help and direct and inspire. 
And these are the duties for which disposition and 
training alike should equip, else one is unfitted to 
teach. 

Under the ordinary method of teacher-control, 
a large part of the attention is divided. If nothing 
is happening, there is, at least, expectation that 
something interesting may occur, and so the atten- 
tion wanders from one possibility of entertainment 
to another, returning frequently to the teacher to 
read the danger-signals in his look and attitude. 
It will not be gratifying to the strenuous peda- 
gogues who pride themselves on their discipline 
to learn that in their school this divided attention 
is always in evidence. Martinets are good game 
for mischievous boys, and there is no closed sea- 
son. The more watchful the teacher, the more ex- 
citing the sport. 

A few days ago a young man, speaking of his 
employer, said: "He makes you feel that you are 
working with him instead of for him. You think 
that the business is yours as much as his." Some 
teachers possess this personality, and they create 
a feeUng of self-government without machinery to 
help the illusion. Unfortunately, such teachers are 
rare because this quality of mind fits men for posi- 
tions in which their talent has a wider scope. The 



THE WAYS OF YOUTH 47 

manner of producing the spirit of self-government 
is unimportant, however, provided only it is cre- 
ated in some way. 

The complete reversal of the children's views 
about behavior is, perhaps, the most striking 
change observed in a school after the introduction 
of pupil-government. This change is especially 
noticeable in the case of boys who have been in- 
corrigible in other schools. 

"This boy is a menace to the school and com- 
munity because of his total lack of moral sense," 
was the recommendation written by a New York 
principal for a boy who was being transferred to 
School no, Manhattan. This school has pupil- 
government, and the new boy found to his amaze- 
ment that he was no longer a hero when he be- 
haved Hke a ruffian. Instead of having the other 
boys on his side against the teachers, he discovered 
that he had to answer for his offences to his own 
playmates. The situation was so odd that at first 
he did not know what to make of it. So he waited. 
He wanted to see how the land lay. And he found 
out. For, like most bad boys, he was bright, and 
one trial before his schoolmates was enough to 
convince him that his way of doing business was 
antiquated. As he was only twelve, he was not too 
old to get a few ideas and adapt himself to new 
conditions. One day the principal sent him out to 



48 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

buy postage-stamps. When returning he saw three 
boys so far away from the building that he knew 
they were truants. He took them back to the 
school and dehvered them to the principal. Later, 
in recognition of his observation and skill, his 
schoolmates elected him chief of police. His work 
with truants, in his new office, has made a record 
for his school. 

At another time a boy was dragged into the same 
school by two policemen. He had been sent by 
the court and, as he did not enjoy the prospect, he 
had tired out the two big men with his struggles. 
So they dropped him on the floor at the feet of 
the principal. After listening to the story, the 
principal gave the boy a card of permission to go 
where he wished, adding that if he preferred not to 
stay in the building he might leave. This struck 
the boy as a strange way of handling him. But 
since he was free to go, he thought he would Hke 
to stay a while. So, he wandered from one room 
to another and finally found a boy acquaintance 
making a desk. There was no teacher in the room 
and the visitor amused himself by picking up some 
of the tools and trying them on whatever hap- 
pened to be convenient. One of the boys stepped 
up to him and said: 

"You are injuring our property. You must 
leave those tools alone." 



THE WAYS OF YOUTH .49 

"Who are you?" asked the intruder. 

*'I am one of the aldermen of the School City." 

The new-comer looked with astonishment at the 
diminutive representative of the authority of the 
school. He was not accustomed to this treatment 
by a boy smaller than himself. The novelty of 
the situation puzzled him. But he laid aside the 
tools and sat down. At the close of school, he 
told the principal that things looked pretty good 
to him and he guessed he would come the next 
day. He soon became an active citizen of the 
School City. 

The instances of which we have been speaking 
are typical of the behavior of boys when in con- 
trol of their work. Their laws may be unwritten, 
but woe to him who transgresses them! A young- 
ster in School 23 of the Bronx was reported to the 
governor of his class for disorder. The governor 
convened the council and, after the evidence had 
been heard, the defendant was pronounced guilty. 
As the boy refused to acquiesce in the verdict, 
the governor laid the matter before the principal. 
The culprit was summoned to the office and told 
that he must make his peace with the governor 
and council before he could return to the class. 
It was not pleasant, but he did it. A short time 
after, he appUed for admission to the " Boy Scouts" 
of his class. The application was laid on the 



50 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

table by his classmates until sufficient time should 
have passed to enable them to determine whether 
he was worthy of the honor. 

A boy of twelve in School 109, Brooklyn, dis- 
obeyed his teacher. He was tried in the court 
of the School City and found guilty. In this case 
the youthful judge, for reasons which he thought 
adequate, after a severe reprimand, released the 
boy on parole. This was the last occasion for 
summoning him before the court. 

It is such situations as these that count for 
moral growth. These children are not taught 
morality. They grow into it. The lessons are 
more effective than if they came from the teacher 
because they represent the sentiment of the class. 
As an eighth-grade boy in School 23, of the Bronx, 
put it, "No boy likes to be thought different from 
other boys. No boy wants a whole class down 
on him." ^ 

The behavior of the pupils in these schools 
springs from the impulse of children to want the 
things that they control done well. They act 
rightly because under these conditions right ac- 
tion is identical with accomplishing what they 
have set themselves to do. The difference be- 
tween such behavior and that of pupils managed 
according to orthodox pedagogy is illustrated by 

* The Spirit of the School, January, 191 1, p. 8. 



THE WAYS OF YOUTH 51 

a school which was recently brought to the atten- 
tion of the writer. The teachers, live janitors, 
and fifty-four monitors were required to keep 
hardly more than twenty-two hundred children 
in order when they assembled for the afternoon 
session. If this is thought to be an extreme in- 
stance, the writer may mention that he has seen 
many schools dismissed, with teachers located at 
every turn on each floor. With such evident fear 
of their prowess, it is little wonder that children 
take dehght in outwitting their guards. 

The needlessness of this pedagogical bluster is 
seen in the Thirteenth Avenue School, at Newark, 
New Jersey. Here twelve pupil monitors elected 
by the children have entire charge of the entrance 
and dismissal of nineteen hundred pupils. At the 
close of recess the writer stepped down to the 
playground and found monitors putting the chil- 
dren into line and marching them upstairs. Every- 
thing was done quietly and rapidly. There was 
no nonsense. Just before the hour of dismissal 
the monitors left their classes and took their re- 
spective places in the halls and on the stairs. 
The teachers remained in their rooms until the 
children passed out. 

The abihty of pupils to control themselves when 
they know that they are not watched from se- 
cluded corners and through glass doors is also seen 



52 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

in School 114, Manhattan. Here the order of the 
boys as they march through the halls from room 
to room, which they do every forty minutes, needs 
no supervision except that of the officials of the 
School City. Here, also, the same young admin- 
istrative officers direct the dismissal of the chil- 
dren. After school they take charge of those who 
remain in the building to play, a privilege which 
is granted because of the congested condition of 
the streets. Even in the street, on the way to 
school, the School City uses its authority to pre- 
vent disorder among its citizens. 

At School 52, Manhattan, the writer had an 
opportunity to see how well the pupil officers could 
handle the children in case of fire. The principal 
signalled all the teachers to his office and then 
rang the fire-alarm. Instantly the class officer in 
each room took charge and in a moment the chil- 
dren were pouring down the stairs in orderly pro- 
cession. There was no delay and no confusion. 
Yet, so far as the children knew, there was a real 
fire and imminent danger. 

An illustration of the efficiency of children in 
the presence of actual danger has just come to 
the writer's attention. A fire occurred in one of 
the buildings of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian 
Society, of New York City. When first discov- 
ered, smoke was already widely spread through 



THE WAYS OF YOUTH 53 

the part of the building in which the fire started. 
At the sound of the fire-gong, the officers of the 
two repubUcs — one of the boys and the other of 
the girls — immediately took command of the chil- 
dren and marched them to the playrooms in an- 
other wing of the large building, where they re- 
mained in charge until the firemen extinguished 
the flames. 

Truancy and tardiness have also been greatly 
reduced through the activity of the young admin- 
istrative officers. In the grammar department of 
the Thirteenth Avenue School of Newark, New 
Jersey, which contains over seven hundred chil- 
dren, there have been only twenty cases of tardi- 
ness and no truancy during the past year. The 
principal of a New York school puts truants in 
charge of active citizens of the school republic who 
formerly were themselves truants. The boys know 
how to find runaways, and when once truants 
have been discovered, former delinquents are skil- 
ful in handhng them. Besides, there is a sym- 
pathetic bond between the two that appeals to the 
truant. The feehng that authority and force are 
unfairly used, which arises so easily in pohce con- 
trol of truancy, is absent. 

Fair play is the pride of boys. They may boast 
of their thefts. Their playmates may call them 
liars without producing so much as a ripple of 



54 YOUTH AND THE _RACE 

anger. But accuse them of playing unfairly and 
there is trouble at once. Now, one of the advan- 
tages of pupil-government is that it furnishes a 
body of administrative officers to act in an emer- 
gency, and a court to permanently settle the diffi- 
culty. When no such organization exists, wran- 
gling is interminable. No one has more authority 
than the others. Consequently, if the accused 
be one of the larger boys, he holds his own by 
his superior personality. Under pupil self-govern- 
ment, the boy charged with unfairness is at once 
sent from the game. That is the duty of the 
police commissioner of the city republic if he is 
present. If not, any officer of the government 
may act. Comparative size and strength do not 
matter. In only a few instances has a boy resisted 
the authority of the City. And he has never re- 
peated the offence. Resistance does not pay, 
because the sentiment of the entire body of citi- 
zens supports the administration. A new-comer 
who has always ruled his playmates may test the 
sentiment, but he finds himself unsupported, and a 
boy will not long hold out alone. The refusal of 
his schoolmates to play with him is a convincing 
argument. When the case comes up for trial, the 
children may be equally divided on the question of 
guilt. But, again, once the case is settled by the 
court, there is unanimous support of the verdict. 



THE WAYS OF YOUTH 55 

We have seen that children are zealous in the 
enforcement of laws which they themselves have 
made. Boys will report their best friend for vio- 
lation of their rules. In doing this they do not 
feel that they are tale-bearers. They have a com- 
mon purpose which is vital to all. This is a seri- 
ous matter with them, as any one may observe 
who has watched them at their own occupa- 
tions. Opposition is treachery to the pupil-body. 
Therefore, it should be severely handled. So 
they are remorseless in reporting misdemeanors. 

The punishments inflicted by the court vary in 
different schools. In some instances the con- 
victed boy is sentenced to the service squad, or to 
extra sessions in the school-room, with additional 
work. In extreme cases he may be placed on 
probation or deprived of citizenship. If the chil- 
dren think the case too serious for the punish- 
ments within their jurisdiction, the culprit may 
be reported to the principal with or without rec- 
ommendation regarding the penalty. In one such 
case the court requested a public reprimand, and 
the principal said that never in his experience 
was a reprimand so solemn or effective. The 
censure was not the principal's. It came from 
the fellow pupils of the boy. That was why it 
hurt. 

The enthusiasm of the children in support of 



56 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

their laws is seen also in their readiness to join 
in the enforcement even at the expense of the 
pleasures which are sometimes thought to be in- 
stinctive. The poHce commissioner for the past 
year in the Washington School at Allston, Massa- 
chusetts, was small for his age. A fight occurred 
on the playground between two of the larger boys 
with whom the commissioner was unable to cope 
physically. He at once called upon one of the 
larger boys for assistance. The fighters were sep- 
arated and sent to the side lines. There was no 
evidence of the pleasure that boys usually find in 
watching a fight. They themselves had passed 
the law against fighting, and here was a clear 
violation which they would not permit. Later 
the offenders were brought before the court, found 
guilty, and punished. 

There is little doubt of punishment meeting 
with approval, for children almost invariably sup- 
port their officers. Those who resent having moni- 
tors appointed over them by their teachers, ac- 
cept, without a murmur, monitors whom they elect 
as president, police commissioner, or, as in the 
case of the School Country, army officers. A boy 
in School 52, Manhattan, resisted the authority of 
one of the monitors and finally struck him. The 
rest of the children refused to allow him to take 
part in their games until he had accepted the 



THE WAYS OF YOUTH 57 

punishment of the court and promised not to 
repeat the offence. 

These same officers, though not usually officious, 
are always ready to assume responsibility. A 
teacher once reported to the principal of the Thir- 
teenth Avenue School in Newark, New Jersey, 
that two boys were fighting on the playground. 
The mayor of the School City happened to be in 
the office and the principal asked him to attend 
to the matter. The boy went at once, and as soon 
as the others caught sight of him the fight ended 
and the participants vanished. The teachers of 
this school are never stationed on the playground 
to preserve order, and the principal has been called 
down only once or twice during the year. This 
school, it is interesting to note in this connection, is 
the one to which incorrigible boys are usually sent. 

Children cannot be described in terms of single 
acts. The same instincts may have varied forms 
of expression. Fighting, or delight in seeing others 
fight, is only one expression of the underlying in- 
stinct. Boys want to control, to rule, to display 
authority, to show off. Fighting is usually a means 
to the larger end. The skilful teacher recognizes 
this and turns the instinct into educative channels 
by giving opportunity to display authority in sit- 
uations which develop social responsibility. And 
pupil-government offers just these situations. 



58 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

There is, however, an even wider field in which 
pupil-government exerts an influence over its citi- 
zens. In several schools the boy officials volun- 
tarily assume responsibility for the progress of 
backward children. If they are absent, these offi- 
cials visit them in their homes. They see that 
their work is kept up and, when necessary, help 
them in their studies. 

The office of commissioner of charities offers a 
further opportunity for the development of altru- 
istic impulses. This office is by no means a sine- 
cure, especially in the larger cities. Since all of 
the supplies are contributed by the children, the 
ethical value of the work is not limited to the com- 
missioner. The young commissioner of School 147, 
Manhattan, in his June report thanks the citizens 
of the School City for their contributions. "They 
were distributed to needy children. Last month 
I gave out nine ties, one pair of trousers, and one 
pair of shoes." Neckties are more of a necessity 
to school life than might at first be thought. The 
School City requires neatness in its citizens. Boys 
must have their hair combed, their shoes must be 
polished, and they must be reasonably neat in 
other respects. If they are careless, the proper 
officer admonishes them. Disregard of the friendly 
warning brings them before the court. They soon 
find that it pays to be clean and neat. 



THE WAYS OF YOUTH 59 

The jurisdiction of the court has at times been 
a serious question. In several cases the decision 
has been handed down that the authority of the 
officials extends wherever citizens of the school 
are found. Naturally, this radical extension of 
authority of the School City exerts a soothing in- 
fluence upon the work of evening gangs. It was 
this decision also which enabled the poHce com- 
missioners to take up the problem of truancy. 
The cure of truancy means much more than fining 
parents or dragging a boy by the collar to the 
school. The citizens in several of the school cities 
have accomplished more than the truant officers 
appointed by the board of education. 

The efficiency of these children in handling mat- 
ters that have troubled older heads suggests a wide 
range of opportunities for social growth. The re- 
sults obtained by some of the school officers are 
amazing. Miracles are common occurrences. The 
children in School 109, Brooklyn, could not keep 
the building clean because of the defective street 
pavement. They also found the noise of the traffic 
disturbing. Their senators and representatives 
instructed the school street commissioner to take 
up the matter with the city authorities. Finally, 
through the persistent efforts of the youthful com- 
missioner, the streets in the vicinity of the school 
were repaved. 



60 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

Again the local board for School 147, Manhat- 
tan, tried for five years to secure guards for the 
trees around the school building. Recently the 
park commissioner of the School City undertook 
to procure them. The guards were furnished and, 
in addition, eight new trees were supplied. This is 
training through doing. Its practice is not in high 
favor among pedagogues, but the theory is a 
charming subject for teachers' institutes. One is 
reminded of Bernard Shaw's epigram, "Those who 
can, do; those who cannot, teach." 

In all of the schools in which pupil-government 
exists, the administrative officer for each room 
assumes control in the absence of the teacher. In 
School 23 of the Bronx, the governor takes charge. 
He uses the teacher's "plan-book," conducts the 
recitation and assigns the lesson for the following 
day. 

The writer wandered through School no, Man- 
hattan, looking for disorder. By chance he stepped 
into a room in which a member of the class was 
explaining a problem on the blackboard. The 
room was quiet and the children were hard at 
work. When asked why he was in charge, the boy 
replied that he was the alderman from that room 
and the teacher had been called out. 

A teacher from School 109, Brooklyn, was unex- 
pectedly detained at home during the morning 



THE WAYS OF YOUTH 61 

session. When she succeeded in getting word to 
the principal, he found on going to the room, that 
the mayor of the School City had taken charge 
and was conducting the recitation. 

This attitude toward the work is characteristic 
of all schools which have pupil-government, so far 
as the writer has been able to obtain information 
regarding them. The school consciousness has 
been replaced by a social consciousness. The 
children are working together to accompHsh some- 
thing. The work is theirs and the teacher is there 
to assist, not to drive. In his absence, everything 
goes on as usual, and, on his return, the children 
are loaded with questions and difficulties. There 
is no attempt to show off. The same serious activ- 
ity prevails as when children are trying to build a 
boat on a Saturday afternoon. 

Teachers are so vigorous in their denial that this 
attitude toward school-work can exist among chil- 
dren without the strong disciplinary hand of a 
pedagogue, that the writer, at the risk of repeti- 
tion, will describe in some detail one of the schools 
referred to above. It is School no, Manhattan. 

The school has about 2,300 pupils, over 95 per 
cent of whom are foreigners. It is located in the 
most crowded section of Greater New York, and 
at the present time ^ contains, among others, 14 

^ Namely, at the time when the writer visited it in 191 1. 



62 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

part-time classes. About 150 of the boys were 
sent to the school from the courts or from other 
schools in whi^h they were said to be incorrigible. 
Surely, such a school is about as hopeless for pupil- 
government as one could find. But let us see what 
the principal has to say about it. 

"Pupil-government, which we have had for over 
nine years, has become so much a part of the school 
administration that we should feel considerably 
handicapped without it. We have been relieved 
of the supervision of the yards, halls, and stairs 
at all times. 

"The authority of the pupil-government extends 
wherever the citizens of the school may be found, 
even into the homes. 

"We have found that the example of the [school] 
citizens and the personal influence of the [pupil] 
officers have been more successful in reaching the 
incorrigible boys and those sent by the courts than 
anything else. We refer our cases of truancy to 
the mayor, who investigates and assigns the de- 
linquents to certain of his officers. These boys take 
a personal interest in the pupils both in the school 
and in their homes. They invite them to join in 
their games, off"er to help them in their studies, 
seek them out when they are absent, and try in all 
possible ways to help them to become ehgible for 
citizenship in the School City." 



THE WAYS OF YOUTH 63 

This is the way pupil-government works out in 
a school apparently least adapted to the success 
of the plan. 

Pupil-government is no longer an experiment. It 
has secured results which the school-master has 
failed to obtain by the traditional method; and 
it has gained these results in enough schools and 
under sufficiently unfavorable conditions to en- 
able us, in case of failure, to know that the blame 
rests on the principal. It is a matter of under- 
standing boys and being able to treat with them 
on terms of equality. But there is where the 
hitch comes. Equality in relation to the pupils 
is repugnant to school-masters. It colHdes with 
their feeling of superiority. Besides, pedagogical 
lore is against it. The idea is not covered with 
the mould of antiquity. The writer admits that 
working on terms of equahty with one's pupils 
has not been the pedagogical fashion; but the 
few men who practised it» were geniuses at teach- 
ing. This ought to give the plan respectabiUty. 
It is natural that a change of style should be 
opposed. It involves discarding a good many 
antique ideas, to say nothing of men. The fash- 
ionable method, however, has not been produc- 
tive of results. It has not proved itself efficient. 
Dissatisfaction with education in America was 
never keener than it is to-day. The cause of the 



64 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

trouble, as usual, is the boy. He neither respects 
nor obeys. He is growing up without any regard 
for law or feeling of responsibility. This is the 
way one often hears the conditions stated. 

The other day a friend told the writer that the 
inhabitants of her town had been obliged to give 
up raising flowers. The school children jump the 
fences and pull up the flowers with the roots, rac- 
ing over the grounds as suits their youthful pleas- 
ure. This is their method of securing "specimens " 
for the class-room. It is easier than going to the 
woods. This is in New England, where they are 
popularly supposed to do educational things a lit- 
tle better than on the "western frontier." Besides, 
the schools of this town are somewhat renowned 
for their efficiency even in New England. They 
have even been in the magazines. Therefore, 
they must be among the best from the standpoint 
at least of righteous pedagogues. So perhaps 
we shall not be thought indefensibly pessimistic 
if we venture the opinion that the discouraging 
statement regarding the lawlessness of American 
boys is not wholly without foundation. But if 
our justification for this admission is still ques- 
tioned, it is only necessary to call attention to the 
touching wails heard at educational gatherings. 
The last of these lamentations was uttered at the 
recent meeting of the National Education Associa- 



THE WAYS OF YOUTH 65 

tion. "Disregard for law is fast becoming an Amer- 
ican characteristic," ^ is the way it was put. To 
remedy this unfortunate condition, the committee 
thinks that "certain elemental virtues must be in- 
culcated in childhood and youth." Thirty-four 
virtues are enumerated. A course of instruction 
is offered which shall inoculate kindergarten chil- 
dren against the germs of inattention, disobedi- 
ence, and selfishness, to be followed in the gram- 
mar school by suitable doses of patriotism, courage, 
and determination. The virtuous product is then 
to be preserved in altruism by a high-school course 
in the relations of the individual to society. 

The conviction that "certain elemental virtues 
must be inculcated in childhood and youth," is 
older than man himself. The question for dis- 
cussion is not the duty but the means. This is 
the problem, and the writer ventures the asser- 
tion that the method proposed by the Committee 
on Teaching Morals will not solve it. Children 
are immune to talks. Were they not, they would 
long since have perished from despair over the 
hopelessness of ever growing up to the state of 
perfection of the talkers. 

To-day we are in the patent-medicine stage of 
education. We are always seeking pedagogical 

1 "Tentative Report of the Committee on a System of Teaching 
Morals in the Public Schools," p. 2. 



66 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

elixirs for the cure of childhood's satanic exuda- 
tions. When shall we learn that the common- 
place maxim, "We learn by doing," is as valid in 
moraHty as in the manual-training department? 
Children grow into the social virtues by practis- 
ing them. And no teacher is so efficient in this 
training as the playmates of the boys. The dif- 
ference is that under the method of precept and 
instruction, the children look upon rules of con- 
duct as part of the teacher's stock in trade. They 
are rules which adults put upon them. Of course 
children do not reason it out. They do not an- 
alyze either the rules or the situations. They 
simply look upon the requirements as useless ob- 
stacles to their pleasure at the moment. Under 
self-government, however, all this changes. A 
New York principal who has a successful pupil 
organization thinks one of its advantages is just 
this, that it makes children analytic. The writer 
himself heard an animated and intelligent discus- 
sion, in a legislative assembly of the school to 
which reference has just been made, of the ques- 
tion whether pupils should be allowed to speak 
in class without permission of the teacher. The 
problem which these youngsters were trying to 
solve was, What conditions are most favorable to 
the progress of class-work? Did they themselves 
— the pupils — receive more from the recitation 



THE WAYS OF YOUTH 67 

when each one could ask questions and express his 
opinion without restraint? There was no school 
consciousness here. It was social consciousness — 
the attitude of co-operation for a definite end. 
They had something to do with which they were 
all vitally concerned. How could they best do 
it.? Having decided that problem, they firmly 
hold one another to the agreement. This is teach- 
ing self-control, and training in obedience to law. 
School efficiency reduces itself finally to the men- 
tal attitude of the pupils. Subjects of study may 
be rearranged. The hours may be shortened or 
lengthened. Promotion may be rapid or slow. It 
will all be useless unless at the same time the 
children are freed from the notion that the school- 
work and discipline are put upon them by an 
extraneous and superior force. Introduce any 
improvement you please and the educational 
efficiency will still be determined by the mental 
attitude of the pupils toward their work. The 
excuse for printing this platitude is that school- 
men have not grasped it. They are continually 
trying to interest children through new machinery, 
such as attractive studies or by oiling the old 
engine with sentimentality. But boys ridicule 
sentimentality, and if the new studies attract 
them for the moment, the problem remains un- 
solved. For mental growth requires that children 



68 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

enter vigorously into the accomplishment of what- 
ever work is given them. 

Too much attention is being given to wheed- 
ling children into learning. This statement will 
meet with approval because it coincides with man's 
desire to display authority. Besides, there is at 
present a strong reaction against the cajolery 
practised by the schools. The conclusion, how- 
ever, that relief is to be found in severe discipline 
from the principal's office is a mistake. Martinets 
are no more fitted for the school-room than senti- 
mentahsts. A threatening hand will make a boy 
cringe while it is raised, but he slyly awaits his 
chance when the back is turned. Martinets make 
cowards and sneaks, but not men. They do not 
train for self-control. Neither do they produce 
an attitude of mind which gives educational effi- 
ciency. Severe discipline from the teacher's desk 
accentuates the school consciousness in the pupils, 
and it is just this state of mind that fosters op- 
position and resentment. Everything which the 
children do under these conditions is done through 
compulsion or fear. Educational efficiency re- 
quires co-operation between teachers and pupils, 
and co-operation means the elimination of the 
school consciousness and the substitution for it 
of the social consciousness. A few men have the 
power to create at once an intimate alUance with 



THE WAYS OF YOUTH 69 

children. When they do this, they produce a sit- 
uation similar to that which exists under pupil 
government. They accomplish the same result 
without the aid of the machinery of organization. 
But such teachers are lamentably few. The writer 
usually finds the most rascally little deceivers in 
the schools of principals who boast loudest of the 
seraphic virtues of their charges. The proper 
order has been reversed. These children have 
learned how to manage the principal. 

Pupil-government creates a desire for order, dis- 
cipline, and study, because the children feel that 
they are in charge. Authority always produces 
an attitude of responsibility. The pupils regard 
rules of conduct as vital to themselves because 
the problems of the school are now their own. 
Infractions of the regulations interfere with the 
performance of their work. So they are severe 
in their judgments. They tend to view every- 
thing from a personal and social point of view. 
"But only the man who has had experience in 
both methods, the old institution-method of dis- 
ciphne and the plan of a limited self-government, 
can realize the enormous difference in the spirit 
of discipline, the powerful effect upon the char- 
acter and individuahties of the children and upon 
the morals in general. . . . Instead of training the 
child to blind submission and blind obedience, it 



70 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

helps him to evolve, to clarify, to rationalize into 
moral precepts and judgments what would other- 
wise appear to him oppressive and repulsive laws." ^ 

The writer has seen all of the virtues for which 
the Committee on Teaching Morals has prepared 
its mixture, taught on the playground, in the 
school, and at the courts of the schools which 
have pupil-government. The health commissioner 
attends to tidiness, and every citizen sees to it 
that the necessity of obedience, self-sacrifice, pa- 
triotism, courage, determination, and the relations 
of individuals to society are impressed upon those 
who need them. To be called to account by one 
of their own companions is a serious matter. It 
lacks the entertaining features of a similar arraign- 
ment by their teacher. They are no longer mar- 
tyrs and heroes. They are outcasts from their 
playmates until they make good. The chief trouble 
in pupil-government is not laxity in enforcement 
of law. The boys are inclined to be too severe. 
The offenders submit gracefully, however, because 
it is the decision of their associates. To "take 
their medicine" without wincing is a part of the 
ethics of boys — that is, if the medicine is pre- 
scribed by their comrades. 

Under the system of teacher control, boys look 

1 " Some Modern Tendencies in Jewish Orphan Asylum Work," by 
Ludwig B. Bernstein, pp. 18-19. 



THE WAYS OF YOUTH 71 

upon order as an evil to be endured only when 
the uselessness of resistance to a superior force 
has been demonstrated. This does not mean that 
a fight always precedes the acceptance of over- 
lordship. It is usually assumed that the teacher 
can maintain his authority if the issue be forced, 
but the children test him in various ways to learn 
how far they may go. If conditions seem favor- 
able, they push on further. They feel their way 
with more or less caution, at first, but grow bolder 
as they find their advance and the accompanying 
pleasures undisturbed. With a new teacher these 
actions are much like those of pioneers exploring 
a strange land. They are in an enemy's country 
and must move cautiously, retreating when the 
opposing force is too strong for successful opposi- 
tion. Children have not yet learned to prize order 
as a means of providing the quiet necessary for 
study. Why should they appreciate the value of 
discipline before they understand the determina- 
tion and persistence which must precede and ac- 
company success in life.f* The educational utility 
of pupil-government grows out of this lack of ex- 
perience. Self-government turns school sentiment 
into a forceful motive for discipline without re- 
quiring the pupils to appreciate the future value of 
the training. They are acquiring ideas of social 
rights and duties, and habits of study; and they 



72 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

are securing them under condirions essenrially the 
same as those in the outside world. This is a clear 
improvement on the traditional school which intro- 
duces unreal conditions found nowhere else in life. 

But there is another reason for children's resist- 
ance to external authority. Man wants to have 
his opinions asked. It was not oppression that 
caused our forefathers to revolt against England. 
They only wanted to be consulted about taxes 
and a few other matters. Had the king's advisers 
understood men well enough to consult with the 
colonists about ways and means of raising money, 
they would probably have drunk George's health 
in well-brewed tea instead of diluting it in the 
water of Boston harbor. 

It must be admitted that, until quite recently, 
in the United States at least, this regard for one's 
opinions was easily satisfied. It was sufficient for 
all requirements that the government be called 
democratic and representative. Political business 
could then be transacted by packed caucuses and 
conventions without interference from those who 
were deceived into believing that they were rep- 
resented. The delusion was aided by sending 
men around to invite the people to political meet- 
ings to hear the questions of the day discussed. 
The inference which men drew was that their 
opinions and votes were thought valuable. 



THE WAYS OF YOUTH 73 

This credulity, awakened by appeals to man's 
self-esteem and love of glory, is a rudimentary 
trait in the civilized adult. It is strikingly con- 
spicuous in savages and normally characteristic of 
children, since they live the psychical life of our 
primitive ancestors. Its general and obtrusive 
presence in adults is evidence that man is only 
relatively civilized. Scratch his skin and you draw 
the blood of the savage. Tickle him gently and 
the simpHcity of early man responds to your touch. 

To-day, however, the insistent demand, among 
other things, for direct primaries and the recall, 
indicates the approach of a new stage in man's 
evolution. He is growing restless under sham 
democracy and misrepresentation. 

Children, in spite of their credulity in many 
matters, are excessively jealous of their preroga- 
tive to manage their own affairs. They are quick 
to see through pretence and affected compliance 
with their wishes. Their zeal for their institu- 
tions may date back to the tribal relations of 
primitive man when each member of the group 
was conscious of his importance in the dehberative 
councils of his nation. At any rate, the upper 
grammar and high school age is the period in which 
children are devoted to governmental functions. 

The desire to be consulted in the management 
of their business rarely takes the form of specific 



74 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

demands. To be sure, boys occasionally have their 
revolts or their "strikes," but these are only spo- 
radic occurrences. The rarity of these events is 
probably due to the children's realization of their 
own weakness. They know that an outbreak will 
be sternly suppressed. Consequently, they adopt 
the subtler method of secret resistance and de- 
ception. Stern repression is the best culture for 
deceit. Pupil-government, on the other hand, cul- 
tivates frankness. The motive for deception is 
removed, since the enactment and enforcement of 
rules are in their hands. They do not deceive 
one another because, among their fellows, the im- 
pulse prevails to admit the offence, to stand their 
ground and defend themselves. Moreover, boys 
are clever in detecting falsehood. They know the 
game. Besides, they are not repressed by social, 
or, if you please, educational restraints. They do 
not hesitate to accuse of falsehood. In this way, 
by their own "third degree" they often force a 
confession which an adult would only inhibit. To 
be accused of falsehood by playmates does not 
have the disastrous effect which would follow if 
the charge were made by the teacher. Indeed, 
when the accusation is made and proved by play- 
mates the result is decidedly educative. Pupil- 
government thus becomes a highly moral instru- 
ment for the schools. 



THE WAYS OF YOUTH 75 

There are several reasons why self-government 
appeals so strongly to children. They want to 
organize and direct something. If they are not 
allowed responsible participation in school mat- 
ters they do not regard the business as theirs. 
It is the teacher's and he must handle it as best 
he can without their assistance. Meanwhile, since 
they are determined to manage something, they 
arrange other events without regard to conflict 
of dates. That is the trouble. The school busi- 
ness and boys' events are scheduled for the same 
hour and place, i. <?., the school-room. Or, if the 
success of an event requires a different date, other 
business, such as the teacher's, is laid aside and 
the principal finds the conflict of interests on the 
walls of the building when he arrives in the morn- 
ing. And all because the teachers are unwilling 
to take the boys into co-operative partnership and 
give them a hand in managing the school buisness. 

Pupil-government appeals to the instinct for 
concerted action. After boys have passed beyond 
the individualism of early childhood, they unite 
for work and play. When they do not choose 
sides, they fall naturally into pretty well-defined 
groups. Of course each group has its leader. He 
does much of their thinking for them, suggests 
their exploits, and preserves peace and order ac- 
cording to boy standards. Usually the leader 



76 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

amalgamates divergent interests by his overpow- 
ering personality. No one type of act is char- 
acteristic of their organizations. The boys usu- 
ally engage in adventures or crimes because they 
are left to themselves. Under guidance they are 
as capable of heroic self-sacrifice as of crime. The 
question is wholly one of leadership, and here the 
skilful teacher plays his part. But he must not 
direct in the domineering, school-masterish fashion. 
That at once puts the boys in opposition. The 
teachers in one of the school republics quietly ad- 
vocated the candidacy of a favorite boy for mayor. 
As might have been expected, an opposition can- 
didate of "the people" arose and carried the elec- 
tion by an overwhelming majority. Curiously 
enough, too, from the standpoint of the teachers' 
fears, the repubHc did not go to pieces. The new 
mayor rose to the occasion. The children in this 
school taught their teachers a lesson in govern- 
ment. They were more open in dealing with their 
superiors than the latter had been in the methods 
which they followed. Besides learning that can- 
dor is the best policy in school, the teachers dis- 
covered that children are often better judges of 
the capacity of one another than are those who 
are over them. 

Boys can always be handled if the touch be 
delicate. But ideas must be suggested rather than 



THE WAYS OF YOUTH 77 

commanded. Successful training consists in im- 
planting thoughts so gently that they seem to 
spring up in the mind of the pupil. Then he is 
proud of them and acts upon them, because they 
are his own. 

Authority, even in trivial matters, brings con- 
sciousness of responsibiUty, and so the leader fre- 
quently asks for advice. The teacher, however, 
should never force an action in matters which he 
has turned over to his pupils. It were better that 
the boys make mistakes. They are quick to see 
an error, and invariably profit from it. You may 
rest assured that children want things which they 
control to be successful. Their earnestness for 
order and work under pupil-government is amaz- 
ing to those who have always thought that teachers 
are the only ones who can manage a school. 

Taking the children into partnership does not 
give the teachers less to do, but it adds to their 
work the interest which attends co-operative plan- 
ning. Instead of continually watching for dis- 
order the teacher now has freedom to think. If 
disturbance occurs in the absence of the teacher, 
the proper official of the School City at once as- 
serts his authority. Boys have a very effective 
way of suppressing resistance to the mandates of 
their government. 

Self-government is not a plaything for the en- 



78 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

tertainment of pupils and teacher during leisure 
moments. It must be serious business if it is to 
amount to anything. The writer has found schools 
in which little could be said to its credit. But in 
all such cases a day in the school revealed the 
fact that the cause of the trouble was the fault of 
the teachers and not the pupils. Any number of 
failures in a given method does not condemn the 
plan. Failure needs no ability. Any one can fail. 
Success, however, is a different proposition. Here 
lies the test of power. One success under typical 
conditions establishes the right of the method to a 
hearing. And pupil-government has succeeded in 
locaHties where, according to the popular judg- 
ment regarding children, it should have failed. 

The plan which we are advocating involves a 
complete change in the attitude of teachers toward 
their pupils. The schools, as usually conducted, 
break down completely in training for self-control. 
The reason for this is that pupils are under con- 
stant espionage from those over them. If moni- 
tors are appointed they are looked upon as the 
teachers' agents. The children are "good" so 
long as they are watched. Why should they seek 
to control themselves when every movement is 
directed from the teacher's desk? The only 
opportunity for individual initiative is toward 
disorder. No wonder they seek this outlet. Self- 



THE WAYS OF YOUTH 79 

control is a delicate growth. It requires a stimu- 
lating environment. Even instincts which have 
their roots far back in the early life of the species 
are dependent upon environment for their emer- 
gence. Much more must this dependence upon 
surroundings prevail for states of consciousness so 
new in the race as those that lead to self-control. 
And it is in the absence of conditions which pro- 
mote this attitude of mind that the schools fail 
most conspicuously. 

One of the functions of the school is popularly 
thought to be training for life. Yet the only way 
in which they do this is by giving the pupils a 
little knowledge. Mentally and ethically the chil- 
dren are kept in a state of bondage. They are 
told what they may do and what they may not 
do. Even their knowledge is measured out to 
them in doses assimilable by the mythical "aver- 
age child," without any reference to individual 
needs. Then, at the end of it all, they are sent 
out into the world, the large majority of them to 
make their own way with little personal guidance. 
What has the school done for them in the matter 
of self-direction in work or self-control in conduct.? 

The remark is often heard that children learn 
more from one another than from their teach- 
ers. This is doubtless true as far as self-control is 
concerned. Children regard the opinions of their 



80 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

playmates as valid judgments. Those of adults 
are beliefs of a strange people. Boys think of 
themselves as apart from whoever may be placed 
over them. The desires and pleasures are not the 
same and hence arises an antagonism of interests. 
With their associates, however, the matter is dif- 
ferent. Here is harmony of desires. On the play- 
ground, therefore, the boy learns to think of him- 
self as a responsible person in relation to other 
persons. In the school-room his responsibility is 
divided. He still maintains the same loyalty to- 
ward his playmates, but the teacher is in a differ- 
ent class. The boy of grammar-school age is just 
emerging from the individualistic stage, and re- 
sponsibiHty is pretty closely restricted to his "set." 
At all events, his duty toward its members is 
greatly exaggerated. So he will not report an- 
other for misdemeanor. 

Now, one of the ethical duties of the school is to 
train children to a larger view of social responsibil- 
ity — to help them outgrow the stage of group 
individualism. Further, if good behavior means 
anything more than obedience through fear, and 
if the elemental virtues of the Committee on 
Teaching Morals are to have any other than a self- 
ish basis, the individual and group interests, of 
which we have been speaking, must be identified 
with the interests of society as a whole. And this 



THE WAYS OF YOUTH 81 

is exactly the service that pupil-government per- 
forms. The interests of pupils and teacher are 
merged in one. The children regard the one as 
theirs. Good! That is just the condition for ac- 
complishing most. The pupils now report mis- 
demeanors to their own officers or to the teacher. 
They are not tale-bearers, because there is only 
one social group. They are united against all 
who disturb the common interests. 

But the extension of social responsibility does 
not end here. The ruling of the school courts, that 
the authority of the officers of the School City 
reaches wherever the citizens of the school are 
found, enlarges also the duties of the citizens. 
Wherever authority goes, there also is responsi- 
biUty. So the young citizens take an interest in 
the less fortunate members of their school. They 
visit them when they are sick. They ascertain the 
reason for absence, plan for the reformation of 
truants, and contribute from their mite to those 
in need. 

Through the park and health commissioners, 
their interest goes even further. During the re- 
cent threatened water famine in New York, the 
officers of School 147, Manhattan, gave directions 
in the paper of the School City for the conservation 
of water in the homes. The concluding statement 
was, "If you notice anybody wasting water, ex- 



82 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

plain the danger of such action. If your sugges- 
tions are not heeded, notify the health commis- 
sioner of the School City." This is only one of the 
many public duties which have been assumed. 
There have been campaigns against dirt as well 
as against danger to life through the obstruction 
of fire-escapes. The extent to which the social 
spirit may be engendered through pupil-govern- 
ment is limited only by the ability of the teacher 
to deal with boys. 

We found, in the preceding chapter, that the 
racial instincts of children call for action. When 
left to themselves these impulses lead to atavistic 
adventures. The boy tends to revert to the primi- 
tive type of savage man. But action has a wide 
range and boys do not require merely one sort. 
Training in behavior consists largely in discovering 
activities that have social worth and which still 
satisfy the racial claim. The enthusiasm for ad- 
ventures then extends to the ethical ideas that are 
worked into these activities. The ideas receive 
their juvenile value by being an integral part of 
the adventure. So we have learned that truthful- 
ness and sympathy and trustworthiness are eagerly 
sought by Boy Scouts because these virtues are 
a part of the character of a scout. But this is 
only one example of a type of acts. The writer 
found youngsters just as proud of being "citi- 



THE WAYS OF YOUTH 83 

zens" as of being scouts. Managing the organi- 
zation of a school repubHc, in its turn, makes a 
strong racial appeal. And here, as before, the 
enthusiasm is carried over to associated ideas and 
purposes. So the social responsibility of the School 
City, as exemplified in the school court and on 
the playground, spreads to the school-work. The 
boys behave and study because order and industry 
are characteristic of good citizens. In this way 
the entire school programme shares the advantages 
of the new spirit. 

To think events in their right proportion re- 
quires as much effort and practice as to learn to 
rightly judge perspective, or to "see" the earth 
round instead of flat. The tendency in children 
is always to exaggerate the factors that to them 
are impressive and to miss the significance of other 
less imposing elements. The effect of this is seen 
in discipline and in studies. The school conscious- 
ness pervades both. The pupils study when some 
one in authority is present. Impending penalties 
constrain them to act in a "reasonable" manner. 
But this is only forced reasonableness. It does not 
train the children to see things in their right pro- 
portion. They study because they are compelled 
to do so for recitation effect, not to master the sub- 
ject. Thoughtful teachers freely admit this, but 
they insist that they are helpless feeders of the 



84 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

school machine. "It takes too long to teach chil- 
dren to think," said a teacher a short time ago. 
"The machinery is always grinding. So we must 
fill the bags as fast as possible." 

Pupil-government trains children to image sit- 
uations in their right proportions. In other words, 
it teaches them to think in social and ethical terms. 
It also puts them into the right state of mind for 
accomplishing things and keeps their racial in- 
stincts busy in productive ways. That is a good 
deal. In addition, it changes the attitude of the 
teachers toward the pupils. And that is almost 
unprecedented. 



CHAPTER III 
THE CHANCE TO GROW 

When Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes was once 
asked at what age the education of a child should 
begin, he is reported to have replied, Three hun- 
dred years before the child is born." Unfortu- 
nately, it has never been possible to make this 
pedagogical arrangement with our ancestors. The 
immediate problem of society, therefore, remains 
to take children as they are and make them into 
the best possible citizens. 

If we may draw inferences from the Hfe histories 
of the lower animals regarding the development of 
children, adaptation to surrounding conditions, 
with its accompanying mental and bodily changes, 
is one of the most significant of the educational 
forces. 

Among wild ducks, intelligence is the test of sur- 
vival, and so these animals develop a large brain, 
and are clever in devices for outwitting their ene- 
mies; but the brains of their domesticated rela- 
tives are smaller, since with them stupidity is not 
disadvantageous, providing they grow a large body.^ 

' De Varigny's "Experimental Evolution," p. i66; Lloyd Morgan's 
"Animal Life and Intelligence," p. 171; Headley's "Problems of 
Evolution," p. 99. 

85 



86 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

Resistance to poisons may be developed in ani- 
mals by acclimatization. Sometimes this resistance 
assumes almost incredible strength. Mice fed on 
food cakes soaked in a vegetable poison, ricin, may 
develop a power of resistance, by a gradual in- 
crease in the quantity of the poison, that enables 
them to thrive on from two hundred to eight hun- 
dred times the maximum amount that could at 
first be withstood.^ 

To determine the durability of this new adapta- 
tion, these mice were fed with ordinary food for 
over six months and a repetition of the test proved 
that they could still successfully resist more than 
fifty times the quantity which they could at first 
withstand. 

"DeQuincey at one time was in the habit of 
taking eight thousand drops of laudanum daily, 
this enormous quantity probably producing no 
greater effect than a dose of thirty to fifty drops 
on an ordinary man." ^ 

The extent of possible adaptive changes is hardly 
yet grasped. Experiment has shown that the 
adaptability of organisms is enormous. By slow 
degrees Dallinger ^ was able to accustom Flagel- 
lata to Hfe at 70 C. though they ordinarily suc- 
cumb to temperature a little below 16 C. Daven- 

* I. P. Ehrlich, Deutsche McdicinischeWochenscrif I, vol. 70, 1891, p. 976. 

* H. M. Vernon's "Variation in Animals and Plants," p. 388. 

' See Davenport's " Experimental Morphology," part I, p. 253. 



THE CHANCE TO GROW 87 

port and Castle also experimented on tadpoles, and 
found that they could develop in them an increased 
resistance to heat that was clearly due to a change 
in the protoplasm of the individuals.^ This ca- 
pacity for adaptation to a temperature that nor- 
mally is fatal shows a remarkable latent power of 
variation in animals. 

Schmankewitsch has shown, among other things, 
that the crustacean Arteviia salma, "living in salt 
water, can change itself, by slowly becoming ac- 
customed to a higher or lower percentage of salt, 
into a different form of crustacean — in water of 
greater concentration into Artemia milhausenii, 
and in fresh water into Branchipus stagnalisy two 
forms having wholly different characteristics." ^ 
DeVarigny,' referring to the investigations of 
Schmankewitsch and others, has expressed the 
opinion that change in environment may produce 
changes in the structure and physiology of ani- 
mals. As a result of these bodily changes, animals 
may gradually become accustomed to conditions, 
and thrive in them, though death would have re- 
sulted had the change been sudden. Indeed, the 
organic adaptation may be so complete as to unfit 
them for survival in their original habitat. Tad- 
poles four or five weeks old, which had grown ac- 

» Op. ciu, pp. 253-254. 

'Max Verworn's "General Physiology," Lee's translation, p. 183. 

* "Experimental Evolution," pp. 213-219. 



88 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

customed to water containing fourteen grammes 
of salt per litre, died rapidly when restored to their 
normal element, fresh water.^ 

The recent investigation of the changes in bod- 
ily form of descendants of immigrants is interest- 
ing in this connection. Professor Boas found that 
"the head form, which has always been consid- 
ered as one of the most stable and permanent 
characteristics of human races, undergoes far- 
reaching changes due to the transfer of the races 
of Europe to American soil." ^ The ease with 
which Dr. F. A. Woods disposes of this contribu- 
tion to the vexed question of the comparative in- 
fluence of heredity and environment, by saying 
that "the real deduction from all this work (of 
Boas), if indeed it should be confirmed, is that it 
is easier to modify a bone than it is a brain," ' 
suggests the story of the insane man who believed 
that he was dead. The attending physician, wish- 
ing to free him of this fixed idea, asked whether 
dead men bleed. 

"No," replied the patient. 

The physician then inserted a sharp instrument 
into the man's arm. When the blood was flow- 
ing freely, he said, "See, you are bleeding. There- 
fore you are not dead." 

' DeVarigny, op. cit., pp. 187, 190. 

' "Senate Document No. 208, Sixty-first Congress, 2d Session," p. 7. 

' Popular Science Monthly, April, 1910. 



THE CHANCE TO GROW 89 

"But that only proves that dead men can 
bleed," replied the insane patient. 

Besides these progressive alterations in animals, 
arrest of development may also occur through the 
influence of the environment. The gill-bearing 
period of many amphibians may be greatly, and 
in some cases apparently indefinitely, prolonged 
by controlling certain environmental conditions.^ 
"If tadpoles be prevented artificially from creep- 
ing upon dry land, they retain their tails and 
gills, and the lungs do not develop even though 
the animals reach a considerable size." ^ "In- 
deed," says DeVarigny, "Hving organisms are in 
so many ways, and by so many parts, dependent 
upon the external medium, their adaptation to it 
is so very close, and the slightest change in envi- 
ronment is apt to react on such a large proportion 
of the vital functions, that we cannot wonder 
at the enormous influence which external modi- 
fications can exert on Hfe." ^ Such is the irre- 
sistible control in which the environment holds 
the lower animals. Let us now examine the sit- 
uation in its relation to children. 

When we consider the question of mortality, 
the death rate of children has materially decreased. 
Since this control over the environment seems 

' DeVarigny's "Experimental Evolution," pp. 111-112. 

*Max Verworn's "General Physiology," Lee's translation, p. 182. 

'DeVarigny's "Experimental Evolution," p. 181. 



90 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

evident and is easily tabulated, it has been ex- 
tensively quoted as proof that, so far at least as 
man is concerned, environmental influences are 
no longer dominant. The science of longevity, 
however, whether it deals with children or adults, 
is only the systematic application of adaptations 
which have hitherto escaped our notice. Medicine 
made little progress against tuberculosis before 
the discovery of the open-air treatment. Preven- 
tive medicine is based on conformity to nature's 
laws. The environment is utilized, not ignored. 
The part that intelligence plays is in the selec- 
tion of an environment suited to produce the 
desired change, and in subjecting the patient to 
these conditions so as to facilitate the adaptation. 
In its larger aspects, however, the question is much 
more involved. If children are preserved with 
organs so defective as to seriously handicap them 
in the struggle for success, this disadvantage in- 
troduces a serious social problem, since it in- 
creases the obstacles in the way of activities 
which make for character, and that, too, at an 
age when the inchnation at best is toward the 
freer, wilder life. Examples of this are seen in 
the results of the physical examination of school 
children. 

From eighty-eight to ninety-eight per cent of 
the New York City school children examined by 



THE CHANCE TO GROW 91 

physicians from the Health Department were in 
urgent need of medical treatment.^ 

In the New York City pubHc schools 252,254 
children were examined by physicians of the Health 
Department during the year closing in July, 1910. 
Among these children, which constitute only about 
one-third of those in the school, 264,625 defects 
were found, of which only 113,278 were remedied.- 

An investigation of the children of the Boston 
public schools by the Division of Child Hygiene 
of the Health Department is in progress at the 
present time. As this book goes to press, 42,750 
have been examined. Of these, 14,957 were pro- 
nounced "normal" and 27,793 were found defec- 
tive.^ 

The investigation of the physical condition of 
the children in the Saint Louis pubhc schools is 
not yet completed. Up to the present time 21,334 
have been examined and of these, fifty-seven per 
cent are defective. This is ten per cent less than 
were found defective last year. The indication 
is that the advice given by the inspectors at the 
previous examinations has been acted upon in 
some instances and the defects remedied. 

*" Co-operative Studies and Experiments by the Department of 
Health and Bureau of Municipal Research, 1908," p. 20. 

^ " Twelfth Annual Report of the New York City Superintendent 
of Public Schools," p. 137. 

' Preliminary report to the author from the Chief of the Division 
of Child Hygiene. 



92 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

The effect of physical defects upon retardation 
In school has been Investigated by Mr. Leonard 
Ayres for the Russell Sage Foundation. The 
study shows, among other things, "that when 
children who are badly retarded are compared 
with normal children and very bright children In 
the same age group, so that the diminishing of de- 
fects through advancing age does not enter as a 
factor, the children rated as 'dull' are found to 
have higher percentages of each sort of defect 
than the normal and bright children." ^ 

The exception to this generahzatlon Is defec- 
tive vision. The report of the medical Inspectors 
of New York City, upon which Dr. Ayres based 
his study, limited their Investigation of eye de- 
fects to acuity of vision. It Is therefore not sur- 
prising to find no connection between defective 
vision and retardation, since teachers have learned, 
during the last few years, to give attention to 
myopic children. Hypermetropla, astigmatism, 
and muscular maladjustment, however, which were 
not considered by the medical Inspectors, nor by 
Dr. Ayres, are the cause of nerve-Irrltatlng eye- 
strain. The Insidious effect of these ocular ab- 
normalities, since the sufferers can see as well as 
the best, makes them all the more disastrous for 

1 " The Effects of Physical Defects on School Progress," Psycho- 
logical Clinic, vol. 3, p. 76. 



THE CHANCE TO GROW 93 

the mental and moral progress of children.^ The 
strain, always present, is intensified by applica- 
tion to books, and so the boys are driven by an 
unrecognizable and uncontrollable impulse from 
school to the street. Dr. G. M. Case, whose pro- 
fessional work as eye surgeon in the Elmira Re- 
formatory quaHfies him as an expert witness, says: 
"There is no room for doubting the fact that tru- 
ancy in school children, in a large percentage of 
cases, can be traced to this cause, which" (when 
allowed to continue) "precipitates the individual 
into the life of a vagabond and criminal." ^ 

Out of four hundred inmates of the Elmira Re- 
formatory upon whom Dr. Case has reported, 
thirty-three and one-half per cent had ocular 
error sufficient to require glasses. And the phy- 
sician is of the opinion that this proportion is a 
fair statement of the situation as regards nearly 
four thousand other inmates whom he examined. 
When it is understood that twenty-five men were 
tested in an evening, the certainty that obscure 
defects, those which produce nervous strain, es- 
caped detection becomes evident. The eff'ect of 
this continued nervous irritation in driving even 
studious boys from books to excitement, for re- 
lief from the nagging strain, is well shown by Dr. 

^ See "Mind in the Making," by Edgar James Swift, ch. IV. 
* Reprint from the Ophthalmic Record, November, 1906, p. 7. 



94 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

J. H. Claiborne's description of his own school 
days : 

"I now know I have always carried about 1.50 
diopters of hypermetropia; in my very early days, 
possibly more. Books and school were to me a 
nightmare, a source of unutterable disgust. I 
drove myself to my tasks with the scourge of 
duty; I never took one moment's joy or pleasure 
in the acquisition of knowledge, unless it was the 
satisfaction of a task accomplished or conquest 
gained. I have no memory of a sense of pleasure 
connected with my studies at school or college. 
The only pleasant memories I have of these pe- 
riods of my life are those connected with out- 
door sports, or facts gained through observation, 
or in the lecture-room through my ears; and from 
my boyhood I could never understand why we 
were forced to read from books all that we learned. 

"Early in life I pondered over the easiness of 
the task of those who never sat at the feet but 
who followed the tracks of the peripatetic philoso- 
phers. Verily, my school and college days would 
have been a joy to me had my ears and my dis- 
tant vision been my means of acquiring knowledge. 
And yet I never had a headache in my Hfe at 
school nor in after years until the commencement 
of presbyopia. I was nervous to the point of m.ad- 
ness at times, and the more nervous I was the 



THE CHANCE TO GROW 95 

more diligent I became, and the nearer I put my 
nose to my book. I have frequently observed 
that my right eye was crossed after prolonged 
study, or after a long, written examination; this 
was also at times observed in my case by a fel- 
low-student. That the difficulty lay in my hyper- 
metropia I have no manner of doubt. I had in- 
herited a love of learning, I felt sure, and I had 
a right to the assurance, and my hatred of close 
application was a mystery to me. I created a 
frown by my accommodative strain, which has 
ever been a part of me. Prolonged application to 
books would be followed often by sleeplessness or 
violence in the field at play. I learned for these 
reasons the art of complete concentration, but at 
what an expense of nervous energy!" ^ 

A special committee appointed by the Chicago 
Board of Education to secure information concern- 
ing under-fed children found that "five thousand 
children who attend the schools of Chicago are 
habitually hungry. They often go to school break- 
fastless, and at times go to bed hungry. As a 
result of being under-fed and living in unsanitary 
homes, they have become victims of malnutrition 
— which creates subnormal children. The lack of 
a square deal and a square meal at home often 

' Reprint from the Journal of the American Medical Association, 
December lo, 1904, pp. 15-16. 



96 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

presents the pathetic sequel of the child who is 
backward at study and forward in delinquency." ^ 
From the canvass made by truant officers, social 
settlements, and charity organizations the com- 
mittee estimates that fifteen thousand school chil- 
dren do not receive three square meals a day. Ob- 
servation of the children in a few schools in which 
they were fed showed improvement in attendance 
and study. "It has checked demotion and in- 
creased promotion in the grades. . . . Several of 
those who were backward and required two years 
to do the work of one grade were promoted in 
eight months, and most of them required the usual 
one year's time to complete the work of a grade." ^ 
In the Chicago Parental School, where pains- 
taking examinations of the mental and physical 
condition of the inmates have been made, the ner- 
vous system of the boys when committed exhibits 
less precision in hand movements, is slower to re- 
act, and is not so well equipped with sense impres- 
sions in comparison with the average public-school 
boy.^ That this is due to the food which they 
have eaten and to the Hfe led, together with lack 
of medical supervision, is shown by the fact that 
at the time of parole "the physical and nervous 

^ " Report on Under-fed Children." Reprinted from the minutes of 
the Chicago Board of Education, 1908, p. 4. 
^Op. cit., pp. S, II. 
• "Report of the Chicago Parental School, 1907," p. 16. 



THE CHANCE TO GROW 97 

condition of the boys has so improved that they 
are, in the majority of cases, equal to, and, in 
many cases, superior to, the pubhc-school boys in 
physical condition." ^ 

The effect of the environment upon the indi- 
vidual is our present theme. The physical defects 
and hunger response which we have been consider- 
ing are features of the environment because they 
are caused by parental and social ignorance, and 
also for the reason that environment, in a large 
sense, includes all the uninherited forces playing 
upon the child. Physical defects have been found 
to exert a powerful and treacherous influence on 
actions. 

Adaptation is forced upon the lower animals by 
the demands of survival. Notwithstanding the 
occasional mutual aid to which Kropotkin ^ has 
called attention, the destruction of the inefficient 
is nature's law. Man has ameliorated its severity 
among his fellows, but in so doing he has merely 
modified it so far as survival is concerned. The 
lives of the physically and mentally weak are pro- 
longed, but the struggle is only postponed till 
maturity. In cases where great wealth permits 
the continued survival of the inefficient, they con- 
tinue socially unfit, and the struggle becomes more 
severe for others in proportion to the wealth de- 

• Op. cit., p. 21. * "Mutual Aid Among Animals." 



98 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

voted to the maintenance and luxury of these in- 
capables. 

Because of the tremendous influence of emotions, 
adaptation is certainly no less forceful in human 
society than among the lower animals. The club- 
man must keep the pace of his companions or drop 
out of their class. The extent to which homes are 
being mortgaged for the purchase of automobiles 
is coming to be regarded as a national menace. 
In one city of hardly more than one hundred and 
ten thousand inhabitants, it is a matter of record 
that two thousand four hundred men mortgaged 
their homes for this purpose. The conclusion is 
inevitable that in most of these cases the deter- 
mining force was the desire of families to preserve 
their adaptation to the group with which they 
had been associated. The same principle of adap- 
tation was illustrated in the actions of the citizens 
of Cairo, Illinois, after the acquittal of the men 
charged with being members of the mob which 
attacked the jail in an effort to lynch the negro 
Pratt.^ The parade and celebration with fireworks 
were in no sense an expression of belief in the inno- 
cence of the acquitted men, but were rather mani- 
festations of joy over the fact that no one had been 
discovered and convicted. One cannot escape the 
conviction that many of the citizens who engaged 

'See Saint Louis Republic, July 23, 1910. 



THE CHANCE TO GROW 99 

in that celebration would have been quite respec- 
table men had they Hved in a community where 
their associates believed in law and order instead 
of in riots and lynching. 

Street boys have their code of conduct, and the 
urchin who fails to live up to it might better drop 
out of life than continue to live among his com- 
panions. Ridicule is the only treatment he will 
receive, and this is the one thing which boys can- 
not endure. 

Standing for the right, regardless of what one's 
associates may say or do, is the ethical attitude, but 
to expect a boy to do so against the resistance of 
his whole environment, at an age when ideals of 
conduct have not yet been settled into fixed prin- 
ciples of action, and when the censure and ridicule 
of associates are so keenly felt as to lead at times 
to suicide, is asking too much. When children suc- 
ceed in taking this stand it is because of strong 
inherited traits, or on account of the inspiration of 
family or friend. In the former case it is an indi- 
vidual characteristic, and in the latter it is only a 
stronger element in the environment overcoming 
the weaker. The first is exceptional and the sec- 
ond quite as truly an illustration of adaptation as 
it would be if the boy yielded to the code of his 
playmates. 

Among animals low in the scale, adaptations 



100 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

are decided almost wholly by instinct. Bees feed 
so unvaryingly upon certain species of flowers that 
the flavor of their honey may be predicted in ad- 
vance. Higher up some plasticity is observed, 
and with it a greater capacity to assume new adap- 
tations, though the rigidity of instinct is still domi- 
nant. Deer wander widely in the late summer 
seeking food, and they are less timid during the 
closed season, but they do not depart far enough 
from their instinctive tendencies to endanger by 
rashness the existence of the species. If the en- 
vironment gradually alters, favorable variations 
enable the best representatives in each generation 
to cope with the new conditions, and in acquiring 
this power they undergo certain adaptive changes, 
but always in obedience to the demand of the 
one end which in nature is paramount — survival. 
Failing to meet nature's requirements, they die. 

Variation is an organic response to new con- 
ditions. Even in sudden, sporadic alterations — 
mutations — the conservation of the new creation 
requires a favorable environment. Stimulating 
surroundings are always necessary either to pro- 
duce a variation or to select for survival one that 
has appeared suddenly. If the conditions are unfa- 
vorable to variations they will not occur unless as 
mutations, and should one be produced in this 
manner it will be lost. Among plants and the lower 



THE CHANCE TO GROW 101 

animals these creative alterations are left to un- 
intelligent nature, and it is to be regretted that 
man, in rearing human beings, has shown less un- 
derstanding of his problem than nature has of 
hers. For with the lower animals only one re- 
quirement prevails. If this demand is met, the 
species has learned its lesson, and the reward is Hfe. 
With man, however, the test of survival is no 
longer brute strength or mere cunning, but intelli- 
gence and ethical conduct, concerning which nature 
is a poor judge. Yet a large number of children 
are allowed to grow up in whatever place of filth 
and crime they may chance to be born, and to these 
conditions they adapt themselves according to 
nature's law. Slums are society's factory for the 
manufacture of criminals. No adequate plans are 
made to produce intellectual and ethical variations 
of a higher type suited to promote social progress. 
The one plan systematically carried out by society, 
aside from sporadic efforts of individual organiza- 
tions, is compulsory education. As though a few 
hours each day in the school-room could produce 
desirable human variations against the resistance 
of an otherwise degrading, if not criminal, envi- 
ronment! Nature herself shows more intelligence, 
since she constantly surrounds the young intrusted 
to her care with an environment suited to her 
purposes. 



102 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

We must not forget that "fitness" is a relative 
state, the character and value of which are de- 
termined by the environment. It is not a merito- 
rious quality of standard excellence fixed for all 
times and all ages. We admit this when we say 
that a given man is ahead of his age, an idealist 
whose plans, perhaps, will work well some day, but 
not now, or when we agree that business success 
requires a certain conformity to prevailing busi- 
ness methods; but we deny it when we insist that 
boys of the slums should lead an ethical, moral life 
wholly at variance with the example of their par- 
ents and the conduct of their associates. This, 
however, only illustrates the working of the won- 
derful power of reason which distinguishes man 
from the lower animals and enables him to prove 
conclusively that what he wishes to do is right and 
what he does not wish others to do is wrong. 

The adult has lived through experiences which 
have taught him the effect upon himself as well as 
upon others of anti-social acts. He has, therefore, 
acquired ideals of conduct resting, in part, upon 
ethical and, again, upon selfish motives, but all, it 
may be, of moral intent. For that reason the envi- 
ronment is a very different problem with him from 
what it is with children, whose ideals are still in 
the making and who, without the foundation of ex- 
perience, do not know to what their actions lead. 



THE CHANCE TO GROW 103 

Children's courts, which to-day are so prominent 
a feature of reform, are based upon the beHef that 
the surroundings create the ideals of the young 
and train them in habits of conduct for which they 
should not otherwise be held responsible. They 
do not have the standards of judgment which in 
the adult serve as criteria of action. To say that 
the mind grows to the modes in which it is exercised 
is only another way of saying that it adapts itself 
to its environment. 

If we ask for proof of the irresistible effect upon 
children of the environment in which they live, 
we need but to observe the change that follows 
improvement in even a few of the conditions of 
life. The New York City police captains, several 
years ago, told the committee on small parks that 
they had no trouble with boys who live in the 
neighborhood of playgrounds and parks. Here 
the spirit of adventure finds free vent without the 
explosions that smash street lamps, windows, and 
heads. In Chicago, the South Side, after two 
years of their system of small parks, "showed a 
decrease in delinquency of seventeen per cent, rel- 
ative to the delinquency of the whole city, while 
the rest of the city had increased its delinquency 
twelve per cent, a showing in favor of the South 
Side of a difference of twenty-nine per cent, upon 
the supposition that without the small parks the 



104 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

South Side would have continued to furnish its due 
quota of court wards as compared with the rest 
of the city." ^ If we consider three districts in 
the South Side which are better equipped with 
playgrounds and apparatus than the other por- 
tions of that section, we find that two of them 
which had a rapid increase in population during 
the period under consideration showed a decrease 
in delinquency of twenty-eight and thirty-three 
per cent respectively, while the delinquency of the 
third, in which the population remained more 
nearly uniform, decreased seventy per cent. And 
this decrease occurred at a time when the delin- 
quency of the entire city increased eleven per 
cent.^ 

In Saint Louis, again, the police reports have 
shown a decrease of fifty per cent in juvenile 
crime in the neighborhood of playgrounds during 
the summer months when they were open.^ 

The significance of this becomes even more 
striking when we learn further that in Saint 
Louis one boy out of about every thirty between 
the ages of eight and sixteen is arrested each year, 
and one out of every fifty is brought before the 

' Allen Burns, reprint from the "Proceedings of the Second Annual 
Playground Congress," p. ii. 

^ Loc. cit., p. II. 

» " Report of the Open-Air Playground Committee, Civic League, 
1903," p. 6. 



THE CHANCE TO GROW 105 

I 
juvenile court.^ Further, the president of the 

Saint Louis Board of Police Commissioners said, 
in testifying before the State Legislature in 1903, 
that "the great majority, probably ninety per 
cent, of the habitual or chronic criminals are per- 
sons who have committed their first offence against 
the laws when children under the age of sixteen." ^ 

The Brotherhood Welfare Association of Saint 
Louis recently opened a gymnasium for boys on 
South Third Street, near the levee. It is a 
wretchedly unattractive, gloomy place with a few 
pieces of worn-out apparatus. Yet this gymna- 
sium draws boys from a distance of fifteen blocks 
on the west and about ten blocks north and south. 
The boys awaken the keeper in the morning to 
gain admission. They spend three-quarters of an 
hour there at noon and hurry back after school. 
At night they will not leave until they are driven 
out. Before the establishment of this gymnasium, 
the boys of that region entertained themselves by 
breaking windows and in various other escapades 
which often ended in the juvenile court. Now, 
as the police officer on this beat says, all this is 
ended. The boys of that district are as well be- 
haved as in other more orderly parts of the city. 

The following table pictures the effect of a play- 

* " Report of the Juvenile Court, 1908," p. 18. 

* " Report of the Open-Air Playground Committee of the Civic 
League, 1903," p. 6. 



106 



YOUTH AND THE RACE 



ground on tardiness in a Milwaukee school. A 
vacant half-block adjoining the smaller playground 
of the school gives the children space enough to 
express their feeHngs. It will be noticed that 
there are 197 cases of tardiness during four months 
in this school of 850 children against 842 and 
1,106, respectively, for the same period in two 
other schools containing only 600 pupils, but with- 
out playgrounds. 







TARDINESS I 


SEPT. 


OCT. 


NOV. 


DEC. 


TOTALS 


Equipped 


6th Dist. School, 












playground 


850 pupils 


41 


79 


41 


.36 


197 


No play- 


3d Dist. School, 












ground 


600 pupils 


148 


216 


198 


280 


842 


No play- 


4th Dist. School, 












ground 


600 pupils 


207 


294 


221 


384 


1,106 



But the success of playgrounds opens a much 
larger question. If so small a change in the life 
of a boy as opportunity to play brings such re- 
sults as the figures which we have cited indicate, 
is not society committing an inexcusable blunder 
in failing to organize for the abolition of slums? 
It would seem as though one portion of cities 
were set apart for the training of criminals. The 
case, however, is not closed with the evidence of 
playgrounds. 



THE CHANCE TO GROW 107 

In Chicago, according to the superintendent of 
the Parental School, from eighty-two to ninety 
per cent of truancy is caused by unfavorable home 
conditions.^ Truancy in that city has been found 
to be between three and four times as frequent, 
proportionately, among the children of those who 
live in the congested districts as among children 
of foreigners in other parts of the city.^ That 
the lack of zeal of these children for education 
is not caused by stupidity is apparent from their 
progress when they have a chance. Eighty-two 
per cent of the boys in the Parental School show 
as good ability as other boys, and after the young- 
sters leave the institution, eighty per cent main- 
tain a record of efficiency.^ "We are firmly con- 
vinced," says the report, "that very few of our 
boys (not more than ten per cent — perhaps only 
about five per cent) would go wrong if placed in 
favorable conditions where they would get plenty 
of good food, proper care, discipline and training, 
and a fair chance to become decent citizens. This 
is clearly proved by the change which comes over 
these boys during their short stay at the Parental 
School, and the lapses of the other twenty per 
cent who go wrong after leaving us are due, in 
large measure, to the baneful influences which 

* " Report of the Chicago Parental School," 1902, p. 36; 1904, 
p. 49. 

* Ibid., 1906, p. 19. ' Ibid., 1904, p. 46. 



108 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

they encounter after parole — not to natural, in- 
herited, inherent meanness or depravity." ^ 

An instructive bit of information comes from 
the Boston Parental School. Some of the boys 
who were committed for truancy ran away just 
before their credits for behavior and attention to 
their studies warranted dismissal. When ques- 
tioned, they admitted that they ran away so as 
to lose their credits and be retained in the insti- 
tution, instead of being sent back to the public 
schools. The teachers make the difference. 

When we examine the condition of boys who 
have gone beyond truancy and have started upon 
the criminal career, the same influence of environ- 
ment is observed. 

Examination of the records of 293 boys in the 
Indiana Boys' (Reform) School discloses the fact 
that the associates of 176 were clearly bad. In 
only 19 cases could they be called good. The 
remainder were fair.^ The Illinois State Reform- 
atory has reported on 500 inmates during two 
years. Of these boys only 27 were found to have 
had good associates.' In the Elmira Reformatory, 
again, the same condition is demonstrable. Here 
the oflScers have kept a biographical history of the 
inmates for a period of years. These records show 

• Ibid., 1905, pp. 40-41. 

2 " Forty-third Annual Report, 1909," p. 36. 

^ "Tenth Biennial Report, 1908-1910," pp. 90, 112. 



THE CHANCE TO GROW 109 

that the associates of 94 per cent of 19,810 pris- 
oners were either bad or doubtful, and those of 
only 6 per cent were good.^ 

When we consider these same boys from the 
point of view of their ability, we again find corrob- 
orative evidence of the influence of environment 
in pulling them down. Two hundred and eighty- 
five of the 293 boys in the Indiana Boys' (Reform) 
School had ability which was either fair or "ac- 
tive," while only 8 were doubtful.^ In the Illi- 
nois State Reformatory, 353 of the 500 boys in- 
cluded in the last report were of average ability, 
or above the average, and only 147 were below 
the average.^ The Elmira report for 1910 does 
not classify the prisoners on the basis of mental 
ability, but an earlier investigation of 17,675 young 
men who had been in the institution shows that 
97 per cent had ability rated as fair, good, or ex- 
cellent, and only 3 per cent fell below the average."* 
Fifty-three per cent of the 19,810 young men re- 
ferred to in the last report of the Elmira Reforma- 
tory had never been to school, or could barely read 
and write. Only 4 per cent had entered the high 
school. The remainder had received a common- 
school education.^ 

' "Thirty-fifth Annual Report, 1910," p. 58. - Loc. cit., p. 36. 
'"Tenth Biennial Report, 1908-1910," pp. 90, II2.'' 
* "Thirty-third Annual Report," 1908, p. 85. 
' "Thirty-fifth Annual Report, 1910," p. 57. 



110 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

It would seem as though society were conduct- 
ing a scientific experiment on a large scale in try- 
ing to ascertain how bad its children may be made 
and still be reformed, just as the poison squad of 
the Pure Food Commission has been used to learn 
how dangerous certain chemicals are in food. 

I am aware that all this tendency to criminal- 
ity may be charged to the account of ancestral 
inheritance. Heredity has always been a comfort- 
able cushion upon which those who chanced to 
be born in happy surroundings have reclined, while 
they moralized upon the inherited taint of the less 
fortunate. Family pride gives such an agreeable 
feeling of superiority that men forget the occa- 
sions when social influence saved them, in boy- 
hood, from arrest. 

No intelligent person thinks that men are born 
equal in mental capacity or that the outlook for 
moral growth gives the same clear view of the 
future in different children. The present writer 
frankly accepts the belief that the quality of gray 
matter which makes the career of a genius pos- 
sible is not produced during the Hfetime of a 
single individual. Heredity is a tremendous social 
force. After admitting all this, however, the vital 
problem is still untouched. The practical ques- 
tion is not what is inherited, but rather what can 
be realized. Will the brain tissue be utilized to 



THE CHANCE TO GROW 111 

its fullest capacity? Will the "born genius" al- 
ways reveal his power? Or, to ask a still more 
practical question, will the average boy and girl 
actualize his or her possibilities? 

Every one, doubtless, will admit that the genius 
is much more Hkely than the average boy to come 
into his own, regardless of adverse surroundings. 
Yet, even among these men there is a suggestive 
grouping in time and place. "The stimulating 
influence of great historical events, calling out la- 
tent intellectual energy," in the opinion of Have- 
lock ElHs, plays its part in producing geniuses.^ 
Cattell, again, as a result of his exhaustive study 
of American men of science, comes to the conclu- 
sion that "the inequality in the production of 
scientific men in different parts of the country 
seems to be a forcible argument against the views 
of Dr. Galton and Professor Pearson that scien- 
tific performance is almost exclusively due to he- 
redity. It is unlikely that there are such differ- 
ences in family stocks as would lead one part of 
the country to produce a hundred times as many 
scientific men as other parts." ^ 

Odin, who made a careful investigation of the 
conditions operating in the production of men of 
letters, found that in France the towns which were 
especially prolific in eminent Hterary men differed 

^ "A Study of British Genius," p. 15. - Science, vol. 24, p. 734. 



112 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

from other places "less by their size than by a 
group of characteristics the chief of which seem 
to be the following": 

1. "Usually these cities have been centres of 
administration, political, ecclesiastical, or judiciary. 
This confirms what we have previously stated with 
regard to the influence exercised by the political 
and administrative surroundings. 

2. "These cities have furnished numerous op- 
portunities for cultivating the acquaintance of 
people of culture and intelligence, because of the 
presence of writers, of savants, of numerous dis- 
tinguished artists, of learned clergymen, and of a 
wealthy nobility devoted to letters. 

3. "These cities have afforded important public 
intellectual resources, such as superior educational 
institutions, libraries, museums, and publishing 
houses. 

4. "Finally, they contained, in comparison with 
other cities, a greater amount of wealth, or, at 
least, a larger proportion of wealthy or well-to-do 
families." ^ 

"Everything, therefore," continues Odin a little 
later, "forces us to admit that education plays 
not only an important role in the production of 
men of letters, but one that is vital and decisive. 

^ "Genese des Grands Hommes," par Alfred Odin, vol. I, pp. 511- 
512- 



THE CHANCE TO GROW 113 

It acts not alone upon those of moderate ability, 
but also, and with quite as great intensity, upon 
talent and genius." ^ 

In order to test this principle still further, Odin 
investigated the early environment of 264 emi- 
nent literary men of other countries. "The fig- 
ures," he then tells us, "are almost identical with 
those that were obtained for eminent men of let- 
ters in France. From a total of 236 men of gen- 
ius whose early educational environment we know 
pretty accurately, not less than 230, or 97 per cent, 
had an opportunity during their youth to come 
into contact with a favorable educational envi- 
ronment. Even if we were to class all the cases 
(the 28 omitted above) in which the surroundings 
are unknown or doubtful, under the head of poor 
educational environment, and that surely would 
not correspond with the facts, there still remains 
more than 87 per cent of cases in which the edu- 
cational environment was favorable." ^ And again, 
in the earnestness of his conviction, Odin exclaims, 
"We must reverse the accepted view. Genius is 
in things and not in man." ^ 

Galton himself, the apostle, with Karl Pearson, 
of heredity says in this connection: "I acknowl- 
edge freely the great power of education and so- 
cial influences in developing the active powers of 

^ Op. cit., p. 527. * Op. cit., pp. 604-605. 3 Op. cit., p. 560. 



114 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

the mind, just as I acknowledge the effect of use 
in developing the muscles of a blacksmith's arm, 
and no further." ^ 

No one could ask Mr. Galton to go further. 
He has acknowledged all that the advocates of 
the influence of environment claim. It has never 
been asserted, so far at least as the writer is aware, 
that environment puts brains into people. 

Dr. F. A. Woods, on the other hand, argues 
strongly for heredity. His argument, however, is 
not thoroughly convincing, especially when we 
find him distinguishing, in respect to environmen- 
tal influence, between "imposed and unescapable 
conditions, which change with the course of his- 
tory and affect entire races or great groups of 
people," and "the class of environments that exist 
within any one age and in any one state of civili- 
zation. ^ 

We have introduced this brief survey of a few 
of the chief investigations on the production of 
men of genius because of its bearing upon the in- 
fluence of environment. The facts seem to show 
that "nurture" exercises a decisive and probably 
determining influence upon the ability with which 
one may be endowed at birth. 

But let us return to the delinquent boys and 

1 "Hereditary Genius," p. 14. 

* Popular Science Monthly, vol. 76, p. 336. 



THE CHANCE TO GROW 115 

learn the effect upon them of a new environ- 
ment. 

Under such meagre inspiration as a reformatory 
can offer, from seventy-five to over eighty per 
cent of those released from the Elmira Reforma- 
tory became honest citizens.^ 

The Lyman (Massachusetts) Reform School re- 
ports that "the total percentage of boys who be- 
came twenty-one years of age this year, and who 
are living in the community much as others who 
have never been in the Lyman School," is esti- 
mated at about 80.^ From the New York Parental 
School, again, 85 per cent are said to *' make good." ^ 

Superintendent Darnall, of the Washington Na- 
tional Training School for Boys, says that about 
80 per cent of the white boys "make good." The 
same percentage of the Michigan Industrial School 
"make law-abiding, self-respecting citizens," ac- 
cording to Superintendent Lawson. 

In IlHnois the board of managers of the Pon- 
tiac State Reformatory made a thorough investi- 
gation of the record of 780 boys paroled to Chicago 
between July, 1901, and January, 1906, and found 
that over 83 per cent did not become violators of the 
law after their release.^ "It is safe to assert," the 

1 See various reports of the institution. 
*" Sixteenth Annual Report, 191 1," p. 36. 
' Letter from the principal. 
* "Eighth Biennial Report, 1906," p. 30. 



116 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

report concludes, "that the percentage of recla- 
mations will not be lower in any portion of the 
United States than in Chicago, with the peculiar 
temptations to vice and crime which have hitherto 
existed." 

These statistics, which the author is convinced 
from his correspondence with superintendents 
could be duplicated from the records of any re- 
formatory conducted according to modern meth- 
ods, did space permit, gain their strength from the 
fact that these children were selected by the street. 
They came of the sort of stock whose children are 
allowed to obtain most of their education from 
the street. All of the parents were shiftless, many 
were drunkards, and not a few of the mothers 
were prostitutes. According to the advocates of 
irresistible heredity, the presumption is that their 
heredity was bad. Yet the number of reforma- 
tions is amazingly large. 

If so many boys who have been branded with 
the prison mark, and who must continually work 
against the resistance of a criminal's name, can 
be reformed, the inference seems clear that a large 
part of the remaining twenty or twenty-five per 
cent might have been saved had the change of 
environment come earlier in their career. We are 
proud of our public schools, and we enjoy calling 
them the bulwark of democracy, but we demand 



THE CHANCE TO GROW 117 

more than any system of education can accom- 
plish when we ask it to make good citizens out of 
boys whose home and street environment is in di- 
rect opposition to the teaching of the school. The 
compulsory-education law drags unwilling boys 
from a Hfe that gratifies their longing for advent- 
ure to work which has no meaning to them on 
account of the enormous chasm between the life 
of an educated man and their own. The educa- 
tional problem and the industrial-social problem 
are one. And the success of popular government 
makes its solution imperative. 

Though mere opinion has little argumentative 
value, still the feeling of confidence in the de- 
linquent boy which one finds in the officers of 
reformative institutions where boys are trusted 
is suggestive in this connection. Under the old 
system of suspicion and guards, the boys respond 
with similar distrust. But in the Cleveland Boys' 
Home, where responsibility is put upon the boys, 
we find a former superintendent saying, **I be- 
lieve that any boy under fourteen can readily be 
changed in his wrong views of life and in their 
resulting conduct." ^ The present superintendent 
cites one instance as typical: "The boy who takes 
care of the office, and is around where things could 
be taken without really fastening the guilt upon 

1 Letter from former Superintendent McGilvrey. 



118 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

him, had been in court seven times for stealing 
before we received him. We have yet to find any- 
thing missing or to catch him in a He." ^ 

The argument for environment is greatly 
strengthened when we see the result upon adults 
in whom the habits of shiftlessness and crimi- 
nality are thought to be firmly established. In 
1905 two men just paroled from the Cleveland 
House of Correction rented a room and asked 
Director Cooley to parole two of their acquaint- 
ances. "We have a room for them and will 
grub-stake them for a week, and can get them a 
job," ^ they said. From this small beginning grew 
the Brotherhood Club, which, in three years, re- 
ceived nearly ^14,000 for board and lodging from 
its members. By 1908 the club had paid for 
over ^2,000 worth of furniture and, during that 
year, ^6,153.54 were spent in caring for paroled 
men; ^4,646.07 of this was later paid back by 
these same men. The balance came out of the 
treasury of the club. With the exception of 
$1,340, which was contributed, and a small debt, 
the entire cost was borne by paroled men. "We 
have found that many men who are regarded as 
criminals are trustworthy when trusted," says 
Director of Public Safety Cooley. "Some of the 

* Letter from Superintendent Laird. 

* "Annual Report of the Brotherhood Club, 1908." 



THE CHANCE TO GROW 119 

prisoners who give the most trouble under the 
old treatment are our best men in the out-door 
method. They are men of backbone, who resent 
ill-treatment by officious guards. They are stub- 
born in punishment. But if these men promise 
to be faithful, they will stand by you. . . . Many 
men who are regarded as unwilling to work will 
develop habits of industry if given a good opportu- 
nity. The regular Hfe at the Correction Farm and 
the work in the fields overcome the vagrancy 
tendency." ^ 

Perhaps the most startling instance of readap- 
tation to a new environment in the case of adults 
is found in the Colorado State Penitentiary. Here 
the men leave the prison and work on the con- 
struction of new roads. But let us allow Warden 
Tynan to tell the story: 

"We employ these men, many of whom are 
serving life terms for murder, two hundred miles 
away from the prison proper. The men are housed 
in tents and dug-outs away from the towns near 
at hand. The camps are guarded only to keep 
away the tramps and prowlers who might attack 
our commissary or feed-rooms or carry away our 
effects. For a long time the only man who had 
fire-arms in one of the camps was a long-time 
prisoner who patrolled the place at night for the 
above reason. 

^ Extract from a letter from Director Cooley. 



120 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

"A lifetime man drives my carriage and waits 
upon my family with perfect trust. The life- 
time men understand that the fact of their being 
trustworthy and honorable will hasten the end of 
their terms, as the sentences of some have been 
commuted and others will be, so that the men 
may go on parole. We endeavor to show the 
prisoners that if they play fair with us we will 
act in the same way toward them. 

"We have now nearly three hundred men em- 
ployed away from the walls and yet in eight 
months past we have lost but one man by escape. 

"About one per cent of the men employed on 
their 'honor' broke faith and escaped during the 
past two years. The inmates who responded to 
their parole contracts and maintained a good char- 
acter after leaving, during the past two years of 
my incumbency, have been about eighty per cent, 
and many are doing quite well. Some of them 
are succeeding in business. 

"So you see that I have found many men whom 
society has condemned and the courts convicted 
worthy of the most perfect trust." ^ 

Whatever may be said about the common people 
under a monarchy, where a chosen few are ap- 
pointed by the Almighty to do the thinking for 
the nation, in a democracy where votes count, 
and the success and welfare of society depend on 

* Letter from Warden Tynan. 



THE CHANCE TO GROW 121 

the intelligence and character of its citizens, we 
cannot afford to leave the training of boys and 
girls to the alleys and streets. 

The success of playgrounds and reformatories 
of the better sort in making good citizens has 
a profound significance which society bhndly ig- 
nores. It shows the delicate sensitiveness of chil- 
dren to their environment. Character depends 
upon both inherited and environmental influences, 
and the conditions of life which surround children 
may favor the appearance of bad hereditary im- 
pulses, or, on the other hand, may prevent them 
from emerging. Proof of this is seen In experi- 
ments on lower animals. Nothing is more firmly 
fixed by heredity than some of the protective in- 
stincts, and yet, as Hodge has shown, the wild 
ruffed grouse of the partridge family, hatched 
under barn-yard fowls are as tame as domestic 
chicks if their surroundings do not call out the 
Inherited timidity. 

Hereditary tendencies are strongly intrenched, 
and blue-blood stock possesses enough bad ones 
to people the penitentiaries were conditions left 
favorable to the development of primitive instincts. 
Fortunately growth of character does not require 
the destruction of these racial Instincts. Relent- 
less courage and resistance to aggression are as 
valuable assets to-day as among primitive sav- 



122 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

ages where they brought bloodshed and torture. 
Social progress, however, demands that these im- 
pulses be controlled by ethical motives so that 
man may act rationally and be thoughtful of the 
larger interests of human society. Children are 
impulsive. They do not possess the principles of 
conduct which control action in the mature. Mo- 
rality is a matter of habit long before it is a rule 
of action. This is the reason for the importance 
of environment. But philanthropic man is more 
interested in building reformatories than in reor- 
ganizing society to eliminate the need for them. 
Reformatories appeal to the emotions which are 
usually soothed by construction of buildings, or 
with the accomplishment of some reform within 
the institution. The nervous social neophyte is 
thus enabled to become enthusiastic over many 
reforms in rapid succession, and reforms, like 
clothes, are stylish for a day. Social reorganiza- 
tion, however, reaches a long distance into the 
future and requires sustained mental effort — a 
condition of mind which has never been popular. 
All our reformative activities illustrate the charm- 
ing inconsistency of man. They are based on the 
assumption that the will has decided hmitations 
which prevent it from overcoming too strong op- 
position. Yet according to the popular opinion 
man's will is supreme. 



THE CHANCE TO GROW 123 

Much of the confusion in which society finds 
itself involved comes from mistaken ideas about 
the will. The opinion still prevails among many 
that it is a force distinct from other mental proc- 
esses, which decides our conduct regardless of 
motives or of hereditary and environmental in- 
fluences. According to this view the will is a 
monarch sitting on his throne and continually in- 
terrupting the causal relation of mental processes 
by determining through his fiat the acts which 
shall be performed, regardless of the nature of the 
individual. But those who hold this opinion are 
not uncritical of others who react diff'erently to 
situations essentially the same to unprejudiced 
observers. This inconsistency of the critic is due 
to the fact that the practical judgment is often 
more correct than the theoretical. The criticism 
is just. A person who does not always act in 
the same way in the same situation would have 
an anarchistic will. Such a will would be gov- 
erned by no laws, and if a man were unfortunate 
enough to be so constructed, his honesty up to 
the present day would be no proof that he would 
not steal your watch to-morrow. That which 
constitutes a strong character is consistency in 
action, so long as all of the conditions remain the 
same, and intelligence reveals itself in discrimi- 
native interpretation of differences in situations. 



124 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

The same situation, however, means essentially 
identical mental and external relations. The outer 
conditions, for example, may remain unaltered 
while the mental conditions vary. That is to say, 
the ideas of the man may have changed or the 
emotional effect of the situation may be different. 
Though he has never stolen he may come to the 
conclusion that the world owes him a living, re- 
gardless of his willingness to work. This intro- 
duces a new condition in his actions and he may 
rob you if he has a chance. If the will were not 
influenced by motives, the development of char- 
acter through education would be impossible. Our 
whole mind is will, and, like all mental processes, 
it is concordant to psychological laws. Indeed, 
the stronger the will of a man the more confidently 
do we predict his action. We know that to him 
motives of honor are irresistible. Hesitation be- 
fore acting signifies that the decision is simultane- 
ously influenced by several conflicting motives. If 
the opposing psychological states did not exist, 
there would be no hesitation. When a man finally 
decides, it means that one of the various lines 
of action has won approval. 

Let us suppose a boy to deliberate about a dis- 
honest act which, if successfully carried through, 
will yield a handsome profit. The advantages of 
the transaction, together with the possible con- 



THE CHANCE TO GROW 125 

sequences of discovery, are the external conflict- 
ing motives; but in addition to these, there are 
the mental conditions — the personality acquired 
from the interaction of inherited tendencies and 
individual experience gained through social and 
educational influences — which we call character. 
These mental relations are the factors over which 
society and education have partial control, and 
for which they are, to the extent of that control, 
responsible. But society has thrown the burden 
upon the schools, forgetful of the inconsistency of 
arraying two opposing social forces, the slums and 
the schools, against one another. 

The success of philanthropic organizations and 
reformative institutions seems to justify the as- 
sertion of those who maintain that criminals are 
made and not born. While admitting the influ- 
ence of good homes we cannot consistently deny 
the effect of bad surroundings. The decision of 
a boy in the presence of temptation will largely 
depend upon the ideals of life which have been 
acquired through experience — the stuff out of 
which thoughts are made. The moral purpose in 
education is attained, then, by accustoming chil- 
dren to ethical habits of conduct while enriching 
their minds with ideals of action which may de- 
velop into controlling principles of Hfe. 

Children unconsciously accept the views of life 



126 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

amid which they live. The acts in which they 
engage are the things to do because they are per- 
formed by those whom they look upon as examples 
for emulation. So their character is fixed by the 
establishment of habits of action. It is not strange 
that those who live in the slums become criminals. 
The wonder is that so many are reclaimed, and 
the remarkable success of the newer reformative 
methods puts the responsibility for the vast ma- 
jority of criminals upon the society which allows 
conditions that train for delinquency to con- 
tinue. 

The will-to-do-right cannot be developed by a 
few weeks' course in mental and moral gymnas- 
tics. It is a matter of slow, continuous growth, 
and when once fixed can rarely be more than su- 
perficially altered. Character, which is only an- 
other name for the established will, is formed 
through ideals which have been consciously or un- 
consciously accepted as governing principles of 
action. And these ideals can become fixed only 
so far as they are acted upon. For this reason 
moral precepts have little value for children when 
the instruction is at variance with the conduct that 
surrounds them. When society learns this and 
organizes to preserve children from immoral sur- 
roundings, instead of giving them a few doses of 
mental and moral antitoxin and then sending them 



THE CHANCE TO GROW 127 

back to dirty alleys and streets, criminality will 
cease to be so perplexing a problem. 

The schools, on the other hand, cannot ignore 
their responsibility. They have a higher func- 
tion than merely to teach the three R's. One of 
the purposes of elementary and secondary educa- 
tion is to train children in such activities as will 
organize the mental processes so as to strengthen 
the social will. We have indicated in a previous 
chapter the method by which this may be done. 
The life of the school should be organized on a 
social basis so that its activities will call out the 
responsibiHty of social relations. The work of the 
teacher, as we have said, is to create these situa- 
tions and to suggest lines of action so subtly that 
the children believe the thoughts to be their own. 
School is, after all, only society organized for edu- 
cative purposes. The failure, from the ethical 
standpoint, in the social organization is that every- 
thing is disjointed. The various organizations for 
mental and moral development are attached to 
one another like the cars of a train, and the sep- 
aration causes many to fall under the wheels. 
Much of the training formerly given in the home 
must now be received in the school. Home and 
school should be united in concerted action through 
neighborhood centres in which the teachers are 
quite as much the leaders of parents as of chil- 
dren. This, naturally, calls for a high grade of 



128 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

teachers, but any other procedure leads to the 
absurdity of a variety of environments each war- 
ring against the others for the control of the chil-' 
dren. Man should not be inferior to the lower 
animals in the matter of having a clearly defined 
purpose in life. With the latter it is mere sur- 
vival, but the goal of human society should be 
social and ethical progress. Success here requires 
organization of social forces for the common end. 
Intelligence puts this responsibility upon man. 

The occasional rise of men from obscurity to 
distinction proves that ability is present in all 
classes, and society should plan to help it emerge. 
The accomphshment of this makes the demand 
for the abolition of slums imperative. It was the 
recognition of this diffusion of talent throughout 
the social strata that led Gray to exclaim: 

"Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid 
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire; 
Hands that the rod of empire might have sway'd. 
Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre. 

" But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page 
Rich with the spoils of time did ne'er unroll; 
Chill Penury repress'd their noble rage, 
And froze the genial current of the soul. 

"Some village Hampden that with dauntless breast 
The little tyrant of his fields withstood, 
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest, 
Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood." * 

' "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.^' 



CHAPTER IV 
THE SCHOOL AND THE COMMUNITY 

The purpose of the public schools is to edu- 
cate children. Like all platitudes this one has 
been stereotyped into a fixed meaning. Educa- 
tional opportunity is the idea. Construct a great 
public-school system, open the doors to all, and 
the work is done. But suppose a large propor- 
tion of the children decline the opportunity, while 
a great part of those who accept are eliminated 
by the crude machinery of the system. What 
then? This is the situation in our country to-day. 

Van Denburg^ found, in his investigation of 
elimination from the high schools of New York 
City, that, in one group of 350, the members of 
which entered at the normal age of fourteen, 99 
boys out of 129 were eliminated, and 163 girls 
out of 221 suffered the same fate. 

After showing that pupils rated high in results 
stayed in school from two to three times as long 
as those with low rating, Van Denburg concludes 
that *'the waste which characterizes the sifting 
process in New York City is typical of a situation 

* "Elimination of Students in Public Secondary Schools," p. 92. 
129 



130 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

which is not local or individual. The high schools 
are being crowded with thousands eager for some 
taste of secondary education, among whom are a 
few who can and will work forward to successful 
graduation under the present sifting process. Yet 
with these, who can and will, are more who can 
but will not, because our process of selection or 
sifting is crude and defective; and so we lose this 
latter, equally good, material through the ineffi- 
ciency of our present methods of selection." ^ 

Thorndike concludes from his statistical study 
of the elimination of pupils from the public schools 
that in cities of 25,000 and over, 90 children out 
of 100 remain until they reach the fourth gram- 
mar grade, 81 continue to the fifth grade, 68 to 
the sixth, 54 to the seventh, 40 to the last gram- 
mar grade, 27 to the first high-school year, 17 to 
the second, 12 to the third, and 8 to the fourth. 
In other words, considerably more than half of 
the children have been eliminated at the end of 
the grammar school, and in the fourth year of the 
high school only 8 out of 100 remain. ^ 

"At least twenty-five out of one hundred chil- 
dren of the white population of our country who 
enter school stay only long enough to learn simple 

^ Op. cit., p. 160. 

" See "The Elimination of Pupils from School," by Edward L. 
Thorndike. "United States Bureau of Education, Bulletin No. 4, 
1907." 



THE SCHOOL AND THE COMMUNITY 131 

English, write such words as they commonly use, 
and perform the four operations for integers with- 
out serious errors. 

"Only about a third graduate from an elemen- 
tary school of seven grades or more. 

"Only about half have any teaching of con- 
sequence concerning the history of their own 
country or any other, or concerning the world's 
literature, science, or art." ^ 

"The fact that the elimination is so great in 
the first year of the high school," Thorndike con- 
tinues, "gives evidence that a large share of the 
fault lies in the kind of education given in the 
high schools. One can hardly suppose that very 
many of the parents who send children on to the 
high school do so with no expectation of keeping 
them there over a year, or that a large number of 
the children who complete the elementary school 
course and make a trial of the high school are so 
stupid and uninterested in being educated that 
they had better be got rid of in the first year." 

Valuable information regarding the attitude of 
children toward their schools has been obtained 
by the United States Commissioner of Labor.^ 
Six hundred and seventeen children from seven 
towns in different parts of the country were visited 

' Thorndike., op. cit., pp. 9-10. 

*" Report on the Condition of Woman and Child Wage-earners 
in the United States," vol. VII, pp. iio-m. 



132 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

at their homes and questions were asked in such a 
way as to eHcit a frank expression of opinion and 
free discussion. Of these 617 children, practi- 
cally 49 per cent were not satisfied with their 
school, and 51 per cent were satisfied. The chief 
cause of dissatisfaction was "a dislike of the gen- 
eral manner of life in school." 

While the report of the commissioner shows a 
relation between inability to make progress in the 
school and dissatisfaction, it is, nevertheless, a 
striking fact that thirty-nine and a half per cent 
of the pupils rated as "bright" by their teachers 
were dissatisfied with the school conditions.^ 

Evidence that the disHke of school or teacher 
was too deeply rooted to be eradicated by manual 
or industrial training was indicated, at least in 
the case of these children, by the fact that sixty- 
two per cent of those who were dissatisfied said that 
they would not wish to continue with their work 
were these arts introduced.^ This, however, shows 
the weak hold which the school had on these boys 
and girls rather than lack of influence on the part 
of industrial training to keep them at their studies. 
Twenty-five per cent of both groups who were 
withdrawing — the satisfied and dissatisfied — would 
certainly have continued their school-work had 
they been able to combine it with training in one 

1 Op. cit., pp. 120-121. ' Op. cit., p. 123. 



THE SCHOOL AND THE COMMUNITY 133 

of the industries, and others who denied it when 
questioned would probably have been favorably 
influenced. 

"On the whole it may be said that the Ameri- 
cans and other English-speaking [children] were 
less satisfied with the schools than the foreigners" 
(except in one town). "Our Anglo-Saxon conceit 
might lead us to attribute the uncritical attitude 
of the foreigners to their inferior intelligence but 
for the somewhat disconcerting fact that it is 
among the Americans and other Enghsh-speaking 
children that the largest percentage of failure to 
progress is found." ^ 

The Massachusetts Commission on Industrial 
♦ 

Education also found by its investigation that "it 
is dissatisfaction on the part of the child that 
takes him from school." ^ 

It is a commonplace of psychology that we 
interpret and value ideas in terms of our past 
experience. Those who have no intimate associa- 
tions with educational values cannot be expected 
to be impressed with the importance of knowledge. 
They often consider it a luxury which poor people 
cannot afford. Yet it is the unschooled class 
that sets the social and educational standards by 
which the lives of large numbers of children are 

' Op. cit., p. 114. 

* Report, 1906, "Columbia University Reprints, No. i," p. 44. 



134 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

irrevocably determined. Since the problems of 
democracy centre around the wage-earners of the 
congested parts of cities, the social good impera- 
tively demands that the schools be made to ap- 
peal to the personal interests of the inhabitants. 
Parents must be made to feel that so much edu- 
cation as the public schools offer is essential to 
the welfare of their children. 

A democracy, in its final analysis, must rest on 
the good-will and intelligence of its constituents, 
and if a popular government with such diverse 
traditions and interests as our own is to live, it 
will be on account of the social and ethical ideals 
acquired in the pubUc schools. But the children 
must attend because their parents wish them to 
be there, as well as from their own choice, and 
not because they are led by a truant officer. We 
all believe in compulsory-education laws, but we 
must also admit that, like every other form of 
coercion, their necessity reveals a weakness in the 
system. Forced acquiescence is needed in an 
emergency, but as a principle of action it is proof 
of administrative inadequacy. A teacher who 
secures obedience through fear of punishment, like 
a government that maintains order by threats or 
by constant police interference, is inefficient. In 
like manner a public-school system may compel all 
children under fourteen years of age to attend 



THE SCHOOL AND THE COMMUNITY 135 

school without displaying any exceptional educa- 
tional efficiency. If children are to be educated 
in any proper sense of the word, they must attend 
because they desire to go, not because the law re- 
quires it. The function of the truant officer, then, 
is to bridge over a time of reorganization, of re- 
adaptation. If truant officers are required, there 
is evidently a lack of adjustment between the 
school and a portion of the community, and the 
larger community, society, has a right to insist 
that the cause of this maladjustment be investi- 
gated and remedied. I admit the difficulty of the 
problem, but its complexity does not lessen our 
responsibility for its solution. The importance of 
the question is so great that it must receive at- 
tention. 

Not only do parents in congested districts lack 
interest in public education, but they are almost 
suspicious of the ease with which it may be ob- 
tained. Disposal of wares requires more than 
merely offering a good thing at a low price. This 
is equally true whether we try to sell goods or 
offer education, and the lower the price the harder 
it is many times to win acceptance. During the 
Saint Louis Exposition, a man who had just pur- 
chased an entrance ticket received a message call- 
ing him downtown on business. As he did not 
wish to throw the ticket away, he tried to give 



136 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

it to some of those who were waiting in line at 
the ticket-office. To his astonishment not one of 
the half dozen to whom he offered it would ac- 
cept the gift. It was so cheap that they were 
suspicious of his motives. It is much the same 
with public-school education. It is so easily ob- 
tained that some of the very ignorant who do 
not appreciate its value, those whom we ought 
especially to reach, think we are trying to get the 
better of them. 

To create this desire for learning among the un- 
schooled is an important preliminary to any solu- 
tion of the pubHc-school question. But such an 
appeal can never be made except by admitting the 
claims of human nature, and by making an ac- 
curate analysis of the environment in which this 
nature works. The most perplexing thing in the 
world and the most difficult to comprehend is this 
apparently simple human element, because each 
of us possesses a different specimen of it. The 
trouble is that we assume too much similarity in 
motives of conduct, and, of course, our own state 
is thought to be a sample of what the minds 
of others should be. Yet, as we know very well, 
when we pause to think, human nature is exceed- 
ingly diverse and coquettish. It must be closely 
investigated by study of the various types of pop- 
ulation and the conditions amid which they Hve, 



THE SCHOOL AND THE COMMUNITY 137 

in order to ascertain the effective motives of ac- 
tion among different groups of men, and then the 
schools should be organized to appeal to these 
motives. I am entirely willing to admit that the 
educational incentives to which we must adapt 
ourselves may often be narrowly utilitarian in out- 
look, yet it is necessary to respect both human 
nature and human necessity; the first step is to 
bring children into the schools and the second 
to keep them there. After they have been won, 
a skilled teacher can unite even utilitarian sub- 
jects with much that makes for good citizenship 
and culture. But the fundamental thing is to win 
the co-operation of different communities by ap- 
. pealing to their distinctive points of view. 

After prejudices against the schools have been 
overcome and the children secured from the tene- 
ment districts, these youngsters cannot be nour- 
ished on stereotyped education. The courses of 
study should be different from those in other parts 
of the city. Here, at least, trade-learning has its 
important place in the higher grades of the gram- 
mar school. Investigations have shown that, es- 
pecially in crowded districts, large buildings draw- 
ing pupils from a wide area are a mistake from an 
educational point of view. Public schools, Hke 
playgrounds, have a certain radius of efficiency 
and beyond this distance, in the congested dis- 



138 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

tricts, they do not exert sufficient influence over 
the residents to attract the children to them. In 
the immediate outlay, smaller buildings scattered 
through a region now cared for by one large build- 
ing, would be more expensive, but it is cheaper 
to train boys in this comparatively expensive way 
than to support them later as criminals. Fur- 
ther, the most skilful teachers who can be se- 
cured should be placed in these districts. What 
can be accomplished with small classes and ex- 
ceptional teachers is shown by the report of the 
superintendent of the Boston schools. Speaking 
of two disciplinary classes, the superintendent says: 
"In both classes [composed of truants and others 
who had made trouble in their schools] the de- 
portment of the pupils has been excellent, the at- 
tendance regular, the interest in the work great, 
and the progress of the pupils satisfactory. . . . 
The most serious difficulty that has been met in these 
classes arises when the attempt is made to return 
some of the boys to the school from which they earned ^ 
In other words, the boys enjoyed the work in the 
disciphnary classes so much that they did not re- 
quire attention from the truant officers, but the 
old antagonism to study reappeared as soon as 
they returned to their regular classes. 

' "Report of the Superintendent of Schools, Boston, 1908." The 
italics are the author's. 



THE SCHOOL AND THE COMMUNITY 139 

Two elements contribute to the success of these 
discipHnary classes: better teachers and fewer pu- 
pils. "With scarcely an exception, pupils whose 
school-work and behavior, under ordinary condi- 
tions, have been valueless to themselves and det- 
rimental to their classmates, have become, in the 
disciplinary classes, interested in their work, and 
therefore obedient and punctual." ^ 

In visiting one of these classes the writer no- 
ticed that a number of boys remained after school 
to play checkers. On inquiry he learned that this 
was common, and the teacher added that sever^. 
were frequently on hand in the morning, ready 
for work, half an hour before the beginning of 
school. Yet these were boys who had been sent 
to this school for lack of interest in their studies, 
and because their teachers could not manage them. 
It is something of a social anomaly that parents 
who wish their boys to receive the best public- 
school education must send them to the classes 
intended for truants and incorrigibles. 

The prevailing unwillingness to accept the prof- 
fered education presents a serious educational sit- 
uation. School boards and superintendents may 
settle down in their dignity and point to the 
educational opportunity; orators with more pa- 

' "Report of the Superintendent of Public Schools, Boston, /909," 
p. 16. 



140 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

triotic optimism than Intelligence may rant over 
our glorious public-school system; the fact still 
remains that even magnificent buildings splen- 
didly equipped and manned by good teachers do 
not fulfil the educational obligations. Obviously, 
the schools must educate the children and not 
merely offer opportunity. The time when the 
blame can be put upon the child is gone. That 
excuse went with original sin. Curiously enough, 
also, from the standpoint of the teachers who find 
so many incorrigibles, men who know how to deal 
with them and who receive the worst samples of 
"bad boys," testify that boys are after all pretty 
much aUke. Why, then, are so many incorrigibles 
found in the schools, and why are so many elimi- 
nated on account of stupidity.? Why, again, and 
this includes the previous questions and much be- 
sides, why do so many children withdraw because 
they are "tired of school"? 

Evidently the public schools are not educating 
the children of the nation. Hardly more than 
ten per cent of those entering the first grade, as 
Professor Thorndike and others have shown, re- 
main in school long enough to obtain more knowl- 
edge than is barely sufficient for the needs of the 
simplest existence. The remainder leave with no 
adequate or enduring knowledge of those subjects 
which are the basis of the intellectual life. 



THE SCHOOL AND THE COMMUNITY 141 

The school authorities can solve this problem 
of educational failure for themselves or they can 
wait until the situation becomes so intolerable that 
the people take the solution out of their hands, a 
time now fast approaching. The New York City 
schools have just been investigated by an expert 
employed by the Committee on School Inquiry 
of the Board of Estimate and Apportionment. 
Neither the board of education nor the superin- 
tendent had any control over the investigation. 
This plan is likely to become fashionable unless 
school authorities awaken to their social responsi- 
biHties. 

The number of children who withdraw when 
hardly half through the grammar grades indicates 
that the mass of the people are not interested in 
the schools beyond securing for their children just 
enough elementary education to enable them to 
read, write, and cipher. Some even regard the 
school as an inexcusable interference with their 
parental prerogative. This is particularly notice- 
able in the congested parts of cities. One cause 
of the general indifference is that the schools have 
stood aloof from the people. Requirements have 
been put upon the community without opportu- 
nity for discussion. The result is protest which 
expresses itself in various ways according to the 
traditions of the protestants. Riots even have 



142 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

occurred in New York City. In smaller places 
the protest is more likely to take the form of 
sullen apathy or withdrawal of the child. 

Now, under a democracy the people cannot 
be successfully handled by monarchical methods. 
They insist upon being consulted. Otherwise they 
refuse to play the game. In extreme cases they 
revolt. I do not say that the demand for par- 
ticipation in the management of affairs is always 
wisely made or intelligently directed. I am call- 
ing attention to a common characteristic. The 
story of the donkey that begged permission to 
keep his ears dry under the traveller's tent and 
finally took entire possession by kicking out the 
man who had reluctantly and begrudgingly granted 
one request after another, was written by a psy- 
chologist. Give a people self-government in one 
thing and they will finally demand it in every- 
thing. What they will do if their demand is de- 
nied depends upon the importance which the pro- 
ceedings assume in their minds. They may fight 
for their right to be heard or they may ignore the 
whole thing. The latter policy is usually pur- 
sued toward the schools. Many men of affairs 
consider them of little importance compared with 
their business, deeming them not worth fighting 
about. This is likely to leave the control of the 
schools, so far as the public has any influence, to 



THE SCHOOL AND THE COMMUNITY 143 

those who derive pleasure or profit in exploiting 
them for the benefit of friends who are apprecia- 
tive of small favors. These men then represent 
the popular voice in the election of boards of edu- 
cation, and in the formation of public sentiment 
concerning the adequate qualities of superintend- 
ents and teachers. This is especially evident in 
the smaller towns. The less of other business a 
man has, in the present laisser fairs method of the 
schools, the more is he willing to fight for his 
democratic right to rule their destinies. It may be 
that he only wishes to secure a position as teacher 
for his daughter. But results are relative, as we 
said a moment ago. Average men of affairs, not 
being educated in public spirit, fight for their 
right to rule only when the expense of the system 
becomes so great as to make the question im- 
portant if compared with their own business. 
That is the situation in New York City to-day. 

My statement was that one reason for the lack 
of an intelligent pubUc interest in the schools is 
the fact that participation has not been encour- 
aged by the school officials. Interest promotes 
interference, and that is very abhorrent to super- 
intendents. In justice to these gentlemen it is 
only fair to add that their objection is a trifle 
human as well as school-masterish. We are a 
democratic nation not altogether because we be- 



144 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

lieve in the rule of the people; our democracy is 
reinforced by our objecting to being ruled by some 
one else. There are many fervent democrats who 
would beheve in a monarchy provided they were 
king. Each one feels that he knows a little better 
than any one else how things should be done. 
Besides, man has not yet evolved out of the primi- 
tive love for superior authority to which we al- 
luded in an earlier chapter. 

But man has a counterbalancing characteristic 
without which democracy would be impossible. 
It was seen in considering self-government among 
boys that they yield gracefully when the major- 
ity is against them. This is the saving feature of 
democracy. Love of authority does not require 
that the individual rule alone. Were that the 
case society would be in perpetual revolt. The 
feehng is measurably satisfied when one is con- 
scious that his opinion counts. 

In democracies, whatever the differences, the 
common factor is that man insists upon exercising 
his authority in some way. In our early history 
the town meeting satisfied this requirement of men. 
Now that the country has outgrown the old form 
of these gatherings, their place must be filled by 
something that will meet the same need — i. e., the 
demand for participation in the management of 
affairs not only in politics but in education — and 



THE SCHOOL AND THE COMMUNITY 145 

by ignoring this mental fact, school officials have 
produced an attitude of dangerous "indifference to- 
ward the schools. It remains to consider how the 
community interest may be awakened. 

If we have rightly sketched the mental attitude 
of a democratic people toward their institutions, 
then schools must have a closer contact with those 
from whom they expect support. The use of the 
school buildings as "social centres" has been 
thought to meet this need. In Rochester, New 
York, a school building in one of the better sec- 
tions of the city was selected for the experiment. 
This neighborhood was chosen for the first "cen- 
tre" in order to avoid the opposition which those 
in the congested districts are inclined to feel to- 
ward organizations which make invidious distinc- 
tions between different communities. "A month 
after the opening, a merchant, whose place of busi- 
ness was near the 'centre,' as the school building 
in which the meetings are held is called, stopped 
the director on the street to say, 'The social centre 
has accomplished what I regarded as impossible. 
I have been here nine years, and during that time 
there has always been a gang of toughs around 
these corners, which has been a continual nui- 
sance. This winter the gang has disappeared.' " ^ 

* "Rochester Social Centres and Civic Clubs; The Story of the 
First Two Years." 



146 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

The gang had been transformed into a debating 
club. 

"The first time I attended a social centre in 
Rochester," says the editor of The Boston Com- 
mouy "was on a Sunday afternoon. In one room 
were one hundred and ten natives of Italy, chiefly 
day laborers. They were of the age and kind often 
associated by ignorant Americans with Sunday 
debauchery and stabbing affrays. But here they 
were studying American history and learning to 
speak the English language. They were too busy 
earning wages to study during the week; but for 
the social centre open on Sunday afternoons they, 
too, might have had to seek fellowship in some 
villainous back room at the price of liquor and 
disorder." ^ 

School buildings as social centres have also been 
tried in Chicago. The Kinzie School is situated 
in the midst of one of the factory and cheap room- 
ing districts. The principal, who has followed the 
work closely, says that the activities of the "cen- 
tre" have brought families together in support of 
the school, among whom more than twenty dif- 
ferent languages are spoken. New-comers into the 
neighborhood have more rapidly adopted the spirit 
of the school, and loyalty is more in evidence 
among those who have withdrawn. Perhaps it is 

' The Boston Common, February 4, 191 1. 



THE SCHOOL AND THE COMMUNITY 147 

owing to this new feeling of loyalty that five girls 
and five boys from families whose children have 
never before remained in school beyond the age 
required by law have just graduated from the 
grammar school. At all events, it is quite cer- 
tain that this is the reason why five boys returned 
to school to finish their course after having left 
at the legal age to work. This becomes more sig- 
nificant from the fact that there are hardly more 
than four hundred pupils in the school, and the 
** centre" has been in operation about two years. 
The residents of the Kinzie district are now begin- 
ning to look upon this school as a part of their 
family Hfe. The women of the ward, through 
their club, recently demanded that a disreputable 
resort with saloon attachment, near the school, 
be closed. And they accomplished their purpose, 
though the proprietor, through political influence, 
for two years had defied the eflPorts of the Juvenile 
Protective League. 

The social centres have an added significance 
because modern cities are too large to sustain a 
uniform and continuous civic spirit. To produce 
this spirit there must be many local feeders. 
Questions are often of community importance, un- 
interesting to those in other sections. At present, 
municipal reforms come in waves, and during the 
interval, between the crests of civic enthusiasm. 



148 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

the people appear indifferent to the quahty of their 
government. The different communities in a city 
have their own system of social values, depending, 
among other things, upon the active traditions 
of the locality. Some of these communities are 
almost as isolated, socially and intellectually, as 
they would be on an oceanic island. This is true 
of certain foreign settlements in our midst, as well 
as of others of a more heterogeneous nature. 
Ideas spring up and are perpetuated within these 
social groups without any definite relation to the 
larger civic life beyond. To harmonize these social 
variants so that they may be adjusted to civic 
progress is one of the perplexing questions which 
city life has forced upon society, and it is one with 
which the schools, if they broaden their ideas, are 
peculiarly fitted to deal. These people require 
something closer to them, something more inti- 
mately associated with their daily lives, something 
more tangible than the abstract idea of good 
government or the city hall. Now the pubHc 
schools are pre-eminently adapted to foster this 
community spirit. They are the part of the social 
organism that comes into the most natural and 
intimate contact with the welfare of the com- 
munity. They are free from the traditions and 
emotional adhesions that cluster around religious 
and charitable organizations and which arouse 



THE SCHOOL AND THE COMMUNITY 149 

prejudice, unwarranted though it may be, against 
their endeavor to improve conditions. At all 
events, those in the congested areas of cities seem 
more willing to unite for the school than for any 
other purpose. 

A revival of community spirit similar to that 
of the Kinzie School district has been observed 
in Minneapolis. The principal of the Seward 
School, writing of the social centre in his build- 
ing, says: "Already I see a new interest taken in 
the school by parents and pupils as well as by 
teachers. There is more of the spirit of co-opera- 
tion. The school means more to the district. 
The social centre is a place where all may gather 
together and talk about the things which are 
worth talking about. It is, and will continue to 
be, a force for the making of cleaner politics." 
Politics, however, are not the only thing that so- 
cial centres may help to cleanse. In Milwaukee 
a man who had erected a large theatre for a low 
class of shows asked the board of education to 
close one of the centres because it was ruining 
his business. 

Whatever good has already resulted from this 
new use of the school-house springs from the re- 
vived feeling among the people that these build- 
ings are really their own. They are gathering- 
places for such companionship as their nature 



150 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

craves, for man Is a gregarious animal whose in- 
stincts are much thwarted by the defective social 
arrangement of modern times. The social instinct 
has been ignored, and this impulse is especially 
strong in those who have not the resources within 
themselves which education gives, and who work 
all day at hard manual labor. They crave compan- 
ionship, and those who understand this fundamen- 
tal human need should supply a place where it 
may be satisfied in a manner that may lead to 
social growth. Why should not the school build- 
ings be equipped to compete with dance halls for 
evening patronage? If this were done, the par- 
ents would come to feel that the schools belong 
to them. It would awaken a community spirit 
which is the essence of democracy. Here men 
could hold their meetings for the discussion of 
labor problems. The political nature of the meet- 
ings could arouse no reasonable objection if the 
buildings were at the disposal of any party that 
wished to reach the people of the community. 
"The school-houses are the real places for political 
meetings," exclaimed the chairman of the Demo- 
cratic County Committee at a meeting called in 
Rochester to decide whether the request of a Re- 
publican club to use the school building for com- 
mittee meetings should be granted. 

Problems of poverty, its cause and the means 



THE SCHOOL AND THE COMMUNITY 151 

of Its elimination, could be studied and discussed. 
Certain evenings might well be designated for 
these questions and citizens outside of the dis- 
trict invited to be present and participate. It is 
safe to say that the millionaire, if he would at- 
tend, might gain no less profit from these discus- 
sions than the day laborer. **How the other half 
live" would afford valuable material for thought 
for both halves. These questions will not down, 
and the place for their discussion should not be 
limited to the corner saloon and the rich men's 
clubs — the present gathering-places for the social 
extremes. There should be some appointed room 
in which men in all conditions of life could come 
together on an equal footing and where the infor- 
mation gathered in recent years could be made 
the basis of deliberation. Such meetings held in 
school buildings under the auspices of the board 
of education would be the best sort of social uni- 
versities, and the writer can say from personal 
attendance at similar gatherings that the accurate 
formulation of facts would not be given wholly 
by college statisticians. The amount of reading 
and study which some of the "laborers" have 
given to these questions is, many times, astound- 
ing. The justification for using the school build- 
ings for such discussions is that they are about 
social problems which are closely connected with 



152 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

the withdrawal of children from the schools and 
with the widest interests of society. 

But the value of social centres is not limited to 
cities. In Texas, where they are being organized 
in the rural districts, families far separated have 
been united by the common interests of the schools 
and community. Men who never gave the schools 
any attention have suddenly discovered that these 
institutions are a part of their own life. Libraries 
are being organized and meetings are held for the 
discussion of matters of common welfare. All this, 
of course, reacts upon the schools. They are the 
"centres" in more than one sense. Here the men 
and women of the district gather, and the purposes 
and needs of the school are naturally prominent 
among the questions for discussion. 

There is, however, another side to social cen- 
tres. Just as pupil-government furnishes an or- 
ganization through which the plans of the prin- 
cipal may be brought quickly before the leaders 
of the boys, so these centres give opportunity to 
the teachers to make their wishes known to the 
people. The patrons of country schools are widely 
scattered. Teachers frequently complain of the 
difficulty of reaching them. Their plans and ac- 
tions are often misunderstood. Centre meetings 
are periodical gatherings for talking things over. 
The leaders of public opinion are there, and men 



THE SCHOOL AND THE COMMUNITY 153 

no less than boys are responsive to the will of the 
majority. 

I am aware that social centres are not always 
run successfully. But neither are automobiles. 
Disastrous as the thought may be to our self- 
esteem, individual incapacity must always be 
reckoned among the possible causes of failure. 
One is so prone to test the worth of a plan by 
one's own power to carry it through successfully, 
that the writer ventures to illustrate again what 
was said with reference to pupil-government. All 
who trust themselves to my skill in driving auto- 
mobiles may fracture their skulls on telegraph- 
poles. Yet this does not prove that an automo- 
bile cannot be kept in the road. Instead of giving 
up riding, the sensible procedure would be to put a 
man in charge who knows how to run the machine. 
The writer has carefully investigated social-centre 
failures, and so far as he has been able to learn of 
them, in every case the cause was bad manage- 
ment. A man was at the steering gear who did 
not understand his business. A popular plan 
among school officials is to put a teacher in 
charge. Many superintendents, with the same 
fatuity that prevents them from welcoming the 
assistance of outside experts in school matters, 
insist on controlling the "centres." So they se- 
cure the appointment of one of their subordinates 



154 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

without any reference to his quahfications, and 
when he runs the machine into the fence they 
boldly proclaim that it will not work. 

There is a peculiar disease known as arrogantia 
pedagogica, which must be of bacteriological origin 
since you are affected by the microbe every time 
you talk with a certain type of pedagogue. He 
lays down the law to you just as he does to the 
children in his school-room. His dictum requires 
no proof and tolerates no discussion. This is the 
ailment that often incapacitates teachers for the 
work of which we have been speaking. They can- 
not avoid treating the members of the "centre" 
as their pupils and they expect the same sort of 
results as are demanded in the school. When 
teachers are fatigued, this microbe is especially 
active and shows the effects of its inroads in 
various ways. The mental perspective of the 
school-master is distorted. An unusually success- 
ful principal has discovered that "the teachers' 
impression of social conditions is apt to be 
warped if obtained as a result of visits made to 
the children's homes after a day's work." This 
mental bluntness endangers the success of any 
evening work which requires tact, as do social 
centres. 

Unquestionably, principals and teachers should 
be active members of the centres, and some of 



THE SCHOOL AND THE COMMUNITY 155 

them, through the training thus received, would 
develop the power of leaders. Teachers need re- 
generation if they are to accomplish the larger 
work which is now demanded of the schools. The 
common saying that they have peculiar marks 
which make them easily distinguishable in a group 
is the popular way of referring to the pathological 
mental condition of which we have been speaking. 
And the human contact in these centres with the 
parents of their pupils is the best remedy for their 
affliction. 

We have been considering how the people in a 
community may be brought to the school. It is 
equally important to take the school to them. 
Our problem must not be forgotten. Let us ex- 
amine it from another point of view. It is im- 
possible for the great mass of the people to have 
aspirations beyond making a living. Under pres- 
ent social conditions their poverty compels them 
to rid themselves as quickly as possible of the 
expense of supporting their children. They went 
out to work at fourteen. There is no way for 
many of them to rescue their children from the 
necessity of doing the same thing even if they 
could see the value of it. They do not know that 
unskilled labor is at a continually increasing dis- 
advantage and that boys under sixteen are not 
wanted as apprentices in skilled work. This is 



156 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

something that they must be taught. The edu- 
cation of parents is necessary if we are to hold the 
boys in the school. Of course this education is 
very different from that of their children. It is 
not so much the information given in books that 
is needed as enough knowledge of industrial con- 
ditions to realize that a better education is re- 
quired in workmen to-day than when they were 
young. There are comparatively few parents who 
are not anxious to give their children the best 
start in hfe that they can. They simply do not 
know how to do it. And it is the business of the 
school to help them obtain this information. 

But, after ignorance of the worth of education 
has been changed into appreciation of its value, 
there remains another social problem which must 
be reckoned with, and that is poverty. The par- 
ents of six hundred and twelve children were 
questioned by representatives of the United States 
Commissioner of Labor regarding their financial 
ability to send their children to school. Forty- 
one per cent of these parents said that they were 
wilHng to have their children continue but were 
unable to do so, and sixteen per cent were both 
unable and unwilling.^ Assuming that families 
are able to maintain their children in school when 
there is a weekly income of two dollars and over 

1 Op. cit., p. 98. 



THE SCHOOL AND THE COMMUNITY 157 

per capita, after subtracting expenses for rent, 
sickness, and death, and deducting the earnings 
of the children, the report still shows that the 
incomes of forty per cent of five hundred and 
seventy-three famiHes, whose wages were ascer- 
tained, were too meagre to permit the luxury of 
giving their children a grammar-school education.^ 
The significance of these figures becomes more 
striking when it is observed that none of the 
families investigated lived in large cities. 

The Massachusetts commission in its investi- 
gation found that over forty-eight per cent of 
five thousand four hundred and fifty-nine chil- 
dren left school because their parents were unable 
to support them.^ 

Further information on this subject is given in 
the report of the New York Association for Im- 
proving the Condition of the Poor.^ Eleven thou- 
sand families applied to the association for aid 
during the year. At a very conservative estimate 
these families represent thirty thousand children. 
Intemperance was found to be a comparatively 
rare cause of poverty. Sickness, unemployment, 
widowhood, and under-pay were the chief causes. 
Of fifteen hundred families especially studied, the 
association found sickness to be the cause of nearly 

* Op. cit., p. 104. 2 Op. ctt., p. 86. 

'Sixty-eighth annual report, 1911-12. 



158 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

fifty per cent of the poverty, and unemployment 
the cause of twenty-five per cent. " Intemperance 
appeared to account for less than two per cent of 
dependency in these families." 

The figures which we have quoted, startling as 
they are, portray only a part of the situation. 
Those who applied for aid were wholly "down 
and out." There are many other families whose 
income barely enables them to keep from being 
submerged. They must have the scanty wages 
which their children earn, and society pays the 
penalty for its neglect. 

The menace of poverty to good citizenship has 
attracted the attention of the thoughtful. Illi- 
nois recently passed a law providing pensions for 
widows with children, the sum received to in- 
crease with each child. Lloyd-George's plan for 
insuring against sickness and unemployment also 
serves to protect society from immediate disaster 
to its members. 

If the schools take the position in the commu- 
nity which we are advocating, they can ascertain 
the causes of truancy and withdrawal and present 
the facts with such convincing arguments that 
public-spirited men and women will revolt against 
conditions which inevitably doom so many future 
citizens to unmerited ignorance and squalor. But in- 
stead of this the truant officer is sent to the homes. 



THE SCHOOL AND THE COMMUNITY 159 

Belief in educational obligations beyond mere 
instruction set the principal of School 4, in the 
Bronx, to thinking. "One of the serious defects 
from which we suffer in our educational systems 
is the absence of the parents in the educational 
process," was the way it came to him. To be 
sure, there are parents' associations which meet 
occasionally in the school buildings. There is one 
in connection with School 4. But they do not 
meet the situation. The principal saw this and so 
he decided to try a school "visitor." As there 
was no money available for the purpose, he used 
a part of his own salary. The "visitor" became 
acquainted with the families of the children so 
that she might deal with them on the basis of 
friendship. The fact that she was not a mem- 
ber of the teaching staff gave the parents a dif- 
ferent feeling toward her. She also, for the same 
reason, could take a different attitude toward 
them. Their children had not been on her nerves 
all day. 

The results of this experiment suggest various 
ways of extending the influence of the school. 
The interest of the community in this particular 
school has greatly increased. Families move about 
within the district, but will not leave it because 
they wish to remain a part of the school group. 
The parents of the neighborhood have grown more 



160 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

conscious of their share in the physical and men- 
tal development of their children, and the teachers 
have gained an insight into social conditions which 
has greatly strengthened the work of the school. 
Many times the "visitor" has been able to advise 
parents regarding matters which concern the health 
and future success of their children. Whether the 
boy should remain in school another year is, of 
course, a frequent query. Incorrigible and back- 
ward children have been taken to eminent physi- 
cians for examination, and in several instances 
the mental and moral natures of these youngsters 
have undergone radical transformation. 

If school officials say that it is not their busi- 
ness to enter the home and advise parents about 
their duties to their children, the question may be 
very properly asked. Whose work is it.'' The chil- 
dren of these people are among those whom the 
schools are expected to educate, and they are not 
doing it because the parents withdraw them as 
soon as the law permits. If the mature appear- 
ance of some boys enables their parents to evade 
the law by one or two years, they rejoice in 
having got the better of the school authorities. 
We may say that the loss is theirs, but it must 
not be forgotten that we are trying to educate 
rather than discipline. As a matter of fact, how- 
ever, the greatest loss is not theirs. Perhaps 



THE SCHOOL AND THE COMMUNITY 161 

neither the parents nor children will ever realize 
that their lives might have been fuller and richer. 
The loss falls on the nation. The country pays 
the penalty in bad government and criminahty 
for this shirking of duty by the schools. 

But school officials are not consistent in their 
division of duties. In several cities the boards 
of education are conducting evening lectures for 
adults so that these people may learn a little of 
what they missed in childhood. Why does this 
form of community instruction fall within the 
school's province more than the other? We found 
in an earlier chapter that the schools have in- 
vaded the home in respect to several very per- 
sonal matters that concern the welfare of the chil- 
dren. And they are justified in so doing because 
the physical defects to which we refer obstruct 
educational and mental development. But that 
is exactly what parental ignorance does in the 
matter of which we have just been speaking. 
Whatever interferes with the education of the 
children of the nation falls within the limits of 
the duties of the school officials, and they are 
recalcitrant if they fail to investigate and remedy 
them. 

Boston has recognized this claim in at least one 
line. The board of education has assumed control 
of all licensed minors — children between eleven 
and fourteen years of age. No unlicensed child 



162 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

under fourteen is allowed to engage in any of the 
occupations usually open to boys. Regular at- 
tendance at school is essential to secure a license. 
A few years ago the licensed newsboys organized 
the "Boston Newsboys' Association," with elective 
captains and lieutenants. This brought about a 
great improvement in the social sentiment of the 
boys, just as we have already found happening 
in pupil-governed schools. At its third annual 
meeting the association passed a resolution re- 
questing the establishment of a newsboys' court. 
The character of the resolution prepared by the 
boys is so suggestive of the opportunities awaiting 
school officials who are more interested in educa- 
ting children than in quibbling over the boun- 
daries of their work that we quote it in full: 

RESOLUTIONS IN FAVOR OF A NEWSBOYS' COURT ^ 

Whereas, so many newsboys get into court every year 
for petty violations of the law either through ignorance or 
thoughtlessness, or failure to realize the consequences, and 
thereby bring discredit and shame upon themselves, their 
families, and fellow-newsboys, and whereas the majority of 
the newsboys who thus get into court are mere children; 

Be it Resolved, That we, the newsboys of Boston, in mass 
meeting assembled at Keith's Theatre on Bunker Hill Day, 
June 17, 1910, do publicly declare in favor of establishing a 
Newsboys' Court in conformity with the laws of the Com- 
monwealth, which court shall deal with all first offenders 
against the rules and regulations governing their trade. We 
invite the co-operation of all public departments concerned. 

* "Annual Report of the Superintendent," Boston, July, 1910, p. 135. 



THE SCHOOL AND THE COMMUNITY 163 

The Board of Education at once granted the 
request, and the plan as finally put into operation 
established a trial board consisting of five mem- 
bers. Two of these are adults, annually appointed 
by the school committee, and three are newsboys, 
elected annually by the members of the News- 
boys' Association from among their captains. 

"The cases coming before the trial board are in- 
teresting and varied. The complaints range from 
seUing without a badge, or after eight o'clock in the 
evening, or selling on street-cars, to bad conduct, 
irregular school attendance, gambling, or smoking. 
The disposition of these cases varies from repri- 
mands and warnings to probation or suspension 
of license for a definite period, or complete revo- 
cation of license."^ The "repubhc" settles dis- 
agreements among its members. Through its 
court and officers it enforces the requirements of 
the ordinance regarding the work of the boys. 
The members have made, and in some instances 
remade, the rules over which they have direct 
control. In matters beyond their jurisdiction they 
have secured changes through petition. 

One of the significant developments of this news- 
boys' republic is the interest taken in the work by 
the parents of the boys. In a number of cases 
the parents of those brought before the court for 

1 "Annual Report of the School Committee, Boston, 1910," p. 44. 



164 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

trial have expressed their appreciation of the in- 
terest taken in their children. The boys, in turn, 
have discovered that the schools are for them and 
not against them. This change in feeling has 
greatly improved their school-work and attend- 
ance. Their new point of view is illustrated, 
among other wa3^s, in their efforts to advance 
those members who have reached the age of grad- 
uation from the occupation of newsboys. They 
have even secured scholarships in several higher 
educational institutions as well as in business 
schools. 

The results gained through the newsboys' re- 
public illustrates again the tremendous strength 
and versatility of primitive instincts. Put edu- 
cation in opposition to them and endless strife 
ensues. Under these circumstances the boy is in 
continual mental resistance to the civilized regime 
against which his primitive nature rebels. Ally 
these instincts wjth you in the educative process, 
and development acquires the added momentum 
of racial energy. How great this energy is may 
be judged from the untiring activity of boys en- 
gaged in work which taps these impulses. 

This newsboys' republic of twenty-five hundred 
members is a sample of the social opportunities 
for extending the influence of the schools. That 
is our reason for speaking of it at some length. 



THE SCHOOL AND THE COMMUNITY 165 

It is to be regretted that such means of gaining 
the support of those who are incUned to be sus- 
picious of the purposes of the school are not more 
frequently utiUzed. School officials are still too 
busy polishing the old machine, so that it may 
run smoothly and not disturb the community 
with the noise of friction, to give much attention 
to winning the boys of the street. Nearly every 
important duty beyond instruction which the 
schools have assumed has been undertaken only 
after long agitation by laymen. Not until the 
demands of the community have become irresist- 
ible have the authorities yielded. This was the 
case with medical inspection of pupils and with 
school nurses. The establishment of special schools 
for backward children was delayed until the pop- 
ular demand became a menace. Even now few 
towns have them, and in cities where they are 
found the number is wholly inadequate to the 
needs. When the pubHc will no longer brook re- 
fusal, reforms are instituted and the next decade 
is spent in extolling the progress. The few cases 
in which schools have advanced without popular 
demand — those, for example, which have estab- 
lished pupil-government — are explained by free- 
dom from the restraint of the superintendent's 
office. "The best thing that I can say about our 
superintendent is that he leaves me alone," re- 



166 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

marked the principal of a really progressive school 
in a large city. And then he added, "It gives me 
a chance to do things." Unfortunately, not many 
superintendents are sufficiently acquainted with 
the method of progress to know that freedom to 
initiate is its prerequisite. Most superintendents 
run a school as they would drive a stage. Teachers 
must keep abreast and trot at equal pace. The 
reins are held in the office, and whenever a prin- 
cipal discovers an idea and turns his head toward 
it, he is pulled back into the road. The method 
of the "safe" superintendent ehminates intelli- 
gence. 

Since the schools, instead of leading in educa- 
tional thought, follow the voice of the public, com- 
munities should organize so as to make intelligent 
demands. School leagues should be established to 
do for education what civic leagues accomplish 
for municipal government. Civic leagues attract 
the intelligent, public-spirited men. Through their 
committees they investigate municipal problems, 
and when facts are gathered the campaign for 
reform is a terror to reactionaries. School leagues 
would focus the intelligent thought of the com- 
munity. They could send experts to visit schools 
in which new plans are being worked out, and 
through the creation of public sentiment force 
boards of education to keep schools at a high 



THE SCHOOL AND THE COMMUNITY 167 

degree of efficiency. It may be said that all this 
can be accomplished through the visits of super- 
intendents, but, paradoxical as it may seem, school 
officials are not always the best judges of educa- 
tional progress. Their educational environment 
has run their thoughts into moulds which can be 
broken only by the sledge-hammer of public opin- 
ion. Besides, if one be found who desires to pro- 
gress, he is often afraid to trust his principals and 
teachers with new tools. At times superintend- 
ents frankly say that the new plan would be 
excellent if their teachers were equal to it. The 
policy of depriving teachers of freedom to initiate 
tends to produce an artificial selection of inca- 
pables who remain in the profession because they 
do not know what else to do for a living. If 
public sentiment through school leagues were to 
force the adoption of better methods in the schools, 
incapables would be rapidly eliminated and intelli- 
gence would be in demand. Young men and 
women would then enter the work because of the 
opportunity offered to think, to experiment, and 
to create. 

Besides interesting the community in the 
schools and forcing progress, these leagues would 
give opportunity to efficient superintendents to 
arouse pubHc sentiment for the things that they 
wish to do. Superintendents are not always to 



168 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

blame for their failures. The board of education 
must be reckoned with. The board is an oli- 
garchy nominally responsible to the people, but 
actually answerable to no one. Its decisions are 
rarely questioned because no one is sufficiently in- 
terested to investigate. The school league could 
reduce these men to their proper place as repre- 
sentatives of the people. How well the plan may 
work was shown in a small town in Missouri. 
The board had transferred an unusually efficient 
primary teacher to an advanced grade in order 
to find a place for the daughter of one of its 
members. The civic league, assuming for the 
time the functions of a school league, asked the 
board for a joint meeting. As a result of the con- 
ference, at which a few facts and opinions were 
plainly stated by members of the league, nepotism 
was nicely aired. The people of this town now 
know what nepotism means and how it affects the 
school. No member of the school board will dare 
to repeat the offence. The people have awakened. 
Pubhc interest in the schools can accomplish 
wonders when it is organized. Had there been 
a strong school league in Baltimore when the 
mayor recently forced out an efficient superintend- 
ent without waiting for the report of a committee 
of experts already appointed by the board, the 
citizens could have resisted the assault upon the 



THE SCHOOL AND THE COMMUNITY 169 

integrity of their schools. To accompUsh his pur- 
pose the mayor was obUged to remove three mem- 
bers of the board of education, two of them men 
of eminence in their profession and all splendid 
representatives of the best citizens. The report 
of the committee, which consisted of the United 
States Commissioner of Education and two other 
well-known educators, afterward sustained the de- 
posed superintendent in all essential matters.^ 
The weakness of the people's case lay in lack of 
organization for the support of good schools. 

We have said that the mass of the people have 
at best only a perfunctory interest in the schools. 
The immediate cause of this lack of enthusiasm 
varies with different classes of individuals, but the 
underlying reason is that vigorous interest can- 
not exist apart from the consciousness of partici- 
pation in the management. The people regard 
the schools as an independent, self-perpetuating 
institution whose officials have only academic in- 
terest in them and faint perception of their re- 
quirements. The path leading to any other point 
of contact with the schools than the visitor's chair 
is so labyrinthine and so encumbered with official 
debris of rules, reports, and red tape of the school 
hierarchy that one must needs be of the leisure 

' For a full statement of this case see the Educational RevieWy 
vol. 42, p. 325. 



170 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

class to have time to trace even an easy ques- 
tion to the end of the trail at the superintendent's 
desk. The condition is not creditable to human 
intelligence. 

The efficient remedy for this maladjustment be- 
tween the school and community would be to en- 
gage a principal and give him power to introduce 
such changes as, in his judgment, the conditions 
in his particular district make advisable. The 
principal with a free hand could co-operate with 
the community in many other ways besides those 
which have been suggested. Through frequent 
association and conference he could ascertain and 
remedy the causes of dissatisfaction with the 
schools. Then if with this freedom he does not 
succeed in producing an effective educational plant, 
he should be replaced with another man, until 
finally one is found who can build up a great pub- 
lic school, the people's college of the community. 
That is the way in which business enterprises are 
made efficient. Would an industrial corporation 
attain success if each subsidiary plant were lim- 
ited in its activities and inventions by the main 
office.? The manager of each mill knows that he is 
to be held responsible for results. If he discovers 
a better way of doing things, the improvement is 
credited to his reputation. This responsibiUty 
draws correspondingly capable men. In the public 



THE SCHOOL AND THE COMMUNITY 171 

schools, on the other hand, if a principal is caught 
trying to find a more efficient educational process, 
he is summoned to the office to answer to the 
charge of doubting the pedagogical wisdom of his 
ancestors. 

But heretics are found even among saints, and 
"social centres" with school "visitors" are the 
outgrowth of disbelief in the official creed. They 
are a protest against the doctrine of the all suffi- 
ciency of a system. Frequently they have been 
tolerated but not approved by the "office." The 
public demand to which we have already alluded 
has not yet become threatening enough to be con- 
vincing. An organized body of laymen is needed 
to tempt the conservatives to forsake their ances- 
tral cult and grow modern. That should be the 
work of the school league. The name is unimpor- 
tant. A body of intelligent men representative 
of the racial and social groups in the community 
is what is wanted. 

The diversity of interests which has accompa- 
nied the industrial progress of the last twenty-five 
years has broken community bonds. Immigra- 
tion has separated cities and country alike into 
polycentric, if not mutually repellent, groups, each 
racial division following its own leader in the strug- 
gle to maintain its traditional standards of life and 
education. A unifying purpose is needed. Other- 



172 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

wise education becomes the foot-ball of contesting 
factions. This purpose the school, as a strictly 
non-partisan and non-racial institution, is espe- 
cially fitted to supply. We have referred briefly 
to some of the plans which have been tried. The 
problem is one that admits only of experimental 
solution, and school officials can no longer ignore 
their responsibility. 



CHAPTER V 
VAGARIES OF THE SCHOOL 

It is strange that backward and defective chil- 
dren should be the first to have their education 
adapted to their individual requirements. They 
have their own special schools in which each 
pupil is studied so that he may be taught in the 
way best suited to his needs. Meanwhile the 
bright youngsters are left to glean what educa- 
tion they can from the rules and facts measured 
out with scrupulous exactness for the capacity of 
the "average child" who has only pedagogical 
existence. It is the old story of mental inertia 
over again in another form. The unusual is what 
attracts attention. People shudder at the recital 
of a railroad wreck in which twenty-five human 
beings lose their lives, yet neglect to remedy evils 
which claim a yearly tribute of one hundred times 
as many lives as all the annual railroad disasters 
of the world. 

In the same way the occasional, abnormal child 

awakens sympathy and stirs to action. But why 

should bright children be allowed to suff'er be- 

173 



174 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

cause of this freakishness of our minds in standing 
aghast at the uncommon? Is man so completely 
enslaved by his primitive nature that he can never 
turn his mind from the bizarre and examine the 
commoner things of life? Can he never learn to 
take an inventory of the stock of social values 
and estimate the comparative worth of each? I 
do not mean to decry the duty of society to its 
unfortunate members, but I insist that bright 
children should not receive less care than those 
who are mentally deficient. Yet they do. The 
schools for abnormal children are superior in every 
respect to those designed for normal youngsters. 

Probably no one would maintain that defective 
children are a more valuable social asset than 
bright ones. Yet society acts as though they 
were. We make elaborate preparations for the 
education of the blind, the deaf and dumb, and 
the weak-minded. The classes in these schools 
are reduced in size to the number which experi- 
ence has shown can be effectively taught in one 
group and higher salaries secure better teachers 
than those engaged to instruct "normal" chil- 
dren. 

Lest I may be misunderstood, I repeat that 
we should continue to do everything that we are 
doing for the unfortunates who begin life so heav- 
ily handicapped. No society can prosper without 



VAGARIES OF THE SCHOOL 175 

the spirit of sympathy. But I ask again, are not 
the ordinarily intelHgent and bright children de- 
serving of equally thoughtful training? 

Our educational inconsistency, however, does 
not end here. There is still another class of chil- 
dren to whom, as we have observed, the pubUc 
schools are beginning to give a little individual 
attention. This is the truants and incorrigibles. 
Their schools are so rare that they would hardly 
be worth mentioning were it not for the evidence 
which they give of the almost miraculous mental 
and social reconstruction of which children are 
capable. These truant schools are at best only 
moderately altered to meet the needs of the re- 
bellious lads, but that makes the testimony all 
the more convincing. A few illustrative cases 
may be cited. 

A nine-year-old boy whose escapades in steal- 
ing had won for him the newspaper notoriety of 
being "a rare specimen of juvenile depravity," 
while in the hospital school of the University 
of Pennsylvania read books like Mark Twain's 
''The Prince and the Pauper" and Andrew Lang's 
fairy tales. Once he came to the desk and asked 
for Kiphng's "Five Nations." When the attend- 
ant told him that it was poetry, and that she 
did not think he would like it, he answered, "No, 
I don't want no poetry. I thought it was his- 



176 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

tory." After he had read aloud a selection from 
George Eliot's "Mill on the Floss," at the re- 
quest of the attendant, to determine how well he 
could read, he asked in a whisper, "May I take 
the book and finish that?" ^ 

Sam, "aged fourteen, was both a truant and 
incorrigible. For the first few weeks he per- 
sisted in leaving his seat, walking about the room, 
and talking every minute of the time, except when 
fighting his neighbor. His main purpose seemed 
to be to be saucy to his teacher and to let every- 
body know that he_ had no fear of punishment. 
He knew absolutely nothing. He could not read 
and would not consent to try. He would grow ugly 
if I made the mistake of asking him to do so. I 
found out that he liked arithmetic because he 
knew a little more about such work. I gave him 
twice as many examples as the others, assuring 
him that if he could read as well as he could 
cipher he might stand highest in the class. He 
waited after school every day for private help. I 
began with the blackboard and a first reader; 
later, a second reader. In six or seven weeks he 
had mastered the subject. To-day he will read 
any book he can lay a hand on. . . . The other 
day he handed me an old blank book and said: 
'Please write in here the things you said about 

' "Psychological Clinic," vol. IV, p. 237. 



VAGARIES OF THE SCHOOL 177 

me. My father doesn't think it's true that I am 
a good boy.'" ^ 

When the school for truant and incorrigible boys 
was opened in New York City, "PhiHp, thirteen 
years of age, was placed high on the eligible hst. 
... He was a chronic truant, and, at the time of 
his transfer, was a vagrant, not having slept at 
home for some time. It took two attendance offi- 
cers and two teachers three weeks to find the boy 
and bring him into school. He remained about 
two hours and then ran out, and was gone for 
another week. Finally he was brought back 
again, and this time he remained. About four 
weeks later, during which time he had not played 
truant once, and in several other ways had shown 
a desire to do well, he went to the principal's 
office, where the following conversation took 
place: 

"PhiHp: 'Say, Miss Jones, there's two fellers on 
my street what don't go ter school. If I make 
'em come, will yer take 'em in?' 

"Principal: 'Why don't they go to school?' 
Philip: 'They ain't been in no school in a long 
while.' 

"Principal: 'Where did they go to school?' 

"Philip: 'They didn't go ter no pubHc; they 

* "The Incorrigible Child," by Julia Richman, Educational Review, 
vol. 31, p. 496. 



178 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

went ter de Brudders'. Say, Miss Jones, won't 
yer take 'em in if I make 'em come?' 

"Principal: You can't make them come.' 

"Philip: 'Now, never yer mind what I can do. 
Will yer take 'em in if I make 'em come?' 

"Principal: 'I'll take them.' 

"And he went off. The next morning he came 
into Miss Jones's office and literally threw two 
boys at her, having brought them into the school 
holding each by the collar. Their home was fully 
half a mile from the school. 

"'Here's them two fellers. Didn't I tell yer I 
could bring 'em?' 

"The two boys upon investigation were found 
to have been away from school for seven months 
spending their entire time upon the street." ^ 
They were at first irregular in attendance, but 
soon settled down to the same regularity that 
Philip was following. 

If recognition of the individuality of semi- 
criminal lads with no social position to maintain 
produces such amazing results, are the individ- 
ual differences of "normal" children likely to be 
less responsive to environment? In other words, 
should not the schools give as good a chance to 
the boys who have not won social distinction by 
crime ? 

•Julia Richman, loc. cii., pp. 492-3. 



VAGARIES OF THE SCHOOL 179 

The influence of environment in mind-building 
has been still further investigated in various 
junior republics, to some of which reference has 
already been made. The objection may be raised 
here that the boys in these republics are under 
the constant care of the teachers. This, however, 
is not true of truant classes, which, as we have 
seen, also off^er striking examples. The evidence 
shows that even in the republics it is not con- 
tinuous contact with the children so much as the 
method employed which has worked the change. 
The teachers in these institutions do not secure 
their results by direct magisterial intervention in 
the behavior of their pupils. Those in charge 
have discovered the way to organize children so 
that principles of conduct may arise from their 
own social relations, and they have learned, in 
addition, that the only justification for the exist- 
ence of a system of education is to train the 
individual children who enter it. Public-school 
officials have missed both of these truths. So in- 
flexible is their system that it would break were it 
bent to meet the needs of individual children. The 
thought terrifies many superintendents. Their 
system is their personal asset, and if it is lost they 
are bankrupt. The only concession, therefore, 
which they are willing to make is the truant 
school. This is regarded as a sort of mind-cure 



180 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

establishment for the treatment of lads who need 
to be mentally toned up, so that they may be 
able to stand the school regime. The possibility 
of the regime itself being at fault is rarely ad- 
mitted "officially," though in private conversa- 
tion one hears all manner of dissatisfaction. After 
the "cure" of the truant school, a boy is returned 
to his regular class to make room for another 
pedagogical invalid, and the same merry round 
of truancy and incorrigibility is repeated until 
finally the legal age for withdrawal from school is 
reached and the lad is turned loose upon society 
without having received any appreciable influ- 
ence from the schools which the naive public have 
thought were intended to train citizens. "Six- 
tenths of our children," remarked a principal in 
one of our large cities, "leave school at the ear- 
liest possible opportunity with habits that are 
vicious and knowledge that is just a step removed 
from illiteracy." 

The republics for criminally inclined children 
originated in the refusal of these youngsters to 
be turned in the common pedagogic lathe. As 
this class is immune to the conventional idea- 
palsies of people in good standing, the traditional 
belief in the omniscience of the school-master does 
not charm them. Consequently these children 
instinctively fight to preserve their individuality. 



VAGARIES OF THE SCHOOL 181 

unconscious that they are thus avoiding respec- 
table mediocrity. 

The revolt of these little social outcasts has 
made a new educational epoch. Of course, the 
event has not as yet greatly affected the schools. 
The twenty years of success, during which the re- 
volt has attained the dignity of a revolution, is 
too brief a period for the education of all the edu- 
cators. A few parents, however, whose boys have 
not engaged in enough crimes to enable them to 
"pass the examination" popularly thought to be 
set for entrance to these junior repubHcs, have 
procured their admission "with conditions," since 
the fathers felt that their boys should not be de- 
prived of the superior advantages of these insti- 
tutions merely because they lacked the finer crim- 
inal touch. Parents occasionally send their sons 
to Freeville to prepare them for college so that 
they may obtain a few ideas along with their 
"education." 

The educational revolt of the more aggressively 
individuahstic lads of whom we have been speak- 
ing has brought its reward. Their training was 
taken out of the hands of professional educators. 
These forerunners of the new educational Renais- 
sance know that the writers of the past were deal- 
ing with very different conditions from those of 
to-day, and they are not unacquainted with the 



182 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

knowledge about children which has been gath- 
ered in recent years. But more than all else, the 
founders of these junior republics are convinced 
that systems of education are designed for chil- 
dren, instead of children being created that elab- 
orate educational systems may be constructed. 
All this means that they are modern. They look 
upon the history of education as the starting-point 
for fresh expeditions of discovery, instead of a 
place in which to camp for the remainder of their 
lives. Investigation and experiment, they believe, 
will change old truths without refuting them; for 
truth is not crystallized facts. It grows by tak- 
ing up within itself new knowledge which builds 
into the fibre of the truth and starts its growth 
anew, so that finally something different, yet not 
contradictory, is produced. 

But the revolting youths have gained their 
point at the cost of serious loss to more adaptable 
children. When the seceders were recognized as 
beUigerents and modern schools were estabhshed 
for them, the pressing necessity for reorganizing 
our public schools was removed. The well-to-do 
accept conventional ideas more readily than the 
socially submerged. Consequently tradition won 
another victory when the position was tacitly 
taken that, while admitting a different educa- 
tional requirement for semi-criminal children, 



VAGARIES OF THE SCHOOL 183 

"normal" lads are best served by a training 
which has stood the test of time. It is doubt- 
ful, however, whether parents will long allow the 
privilege of individuality to be limited to chil- 
dren of criminal prospects. 

But the view that education is more than in- 
struction, that every child has personal charac- 
teristics which make him a special problem, and 
that complete development is possible only when 
these individual qualities are discovered by the 
teacher and utiHzed for growth, has been ac- 
cepted only in principle even for incorrigibles, for 
junior repubhcs are still so few that many boys 
are turned away. Yet most of these applicants 
are from the class which does not seek any edu- 
cation. This is a commentary on the numerous 
withdrawals from the public schools as well as on 
their truancy. But many superintendents are 
unable to see the connection between successful 
schools for wayward children and public educa- 
tion. Their imagination cannot stretch so far. 
The fact that incorrigible boys of the public schools 
become astonishingly tractable and teachable when 
placed in a stimulating environment and treated 
as individuals with personal rights is persistently 
ignored. And yet, when they had the opportunity, 
these same superintendents, with their composite 
method of education, were unable to exert effec- 
tive influence on this type of boy. 



184 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

The refusal of so many school officials to ac- 
cept the larger meaning of the achievements of 
truant schools and junior republics is partly due 
to the difficulties which the admission would cause 
them. If individual differences of sufficient im- 
portance to warrant personal attention were 
acknowledged to be common among children, a 
radical reconstruction of the school system would 
logically follow. This reconstruction is what most 
superintendents wish to] avoid. It would create 
an exceedingly embarrassing situation for them 
because they have nothing else to offer. All their 
training has been along traditional hnes. The old 
classification into good and bad children makes no 
damaging admissions. It is therefore "safe." The 
"good" are those who do not display their ennui 
while the things which they learned in ten min- 
utes the week before are being repeated each day 
in conformity with the pedagogic slogan, "drill," 
or those who feign interest while they flounder, if 
not so bright, in an underbrush of ideas through 
which they see no light. 

Slow thinkers must hurry along in the trail of 
the phantom "average," to find at the end of the 
year that they have only reached the camp of 
the retarded. The appalling injury inflicted upon 
the children of the nation by the refusal of these 
superintendents to give the youngsters a fight- 
ing chance is seen when the children have oppor- 



VAGARIES OF THE SCHOOL 185 

tunity to progress, each according to his own 
ability. 

In the Santa Barbara schools, as Caroline F. 
Burk ^ has shown, the so-called normal children, 
i. e., those who did the usually required year's work, 
were less than half of all the pupils. Under a 
flexible promotion system 281 finished less than 
the year's work and 185 exceeded it. As all of 
the pupils did as much as their ability and sur- 
rounding conditions permitted, the conclusion 
seems inevitable that if the "^normal' children 
had been permitted to set the pace for all, serious 
harm would have been done to the 466, or more 
than half of those in the schools." 

The same striking difference in the capacity of 
children has been shown in the Baltimore schools 
under former Superintendent Van Sickle i^ 

"The plan in brief is to allow pupils who have 
done strong work in the sixth grade, with the 
approval of their parents, to take up extra studies 
of high-school grade while doing the regular work 
of the seventh and eighth grades of the elemen- 
tary school. . . . Pupils who take this work are 
transferred to a convenient centre, in which enough 
pupils may be gathered together to allow the in- 
struction to be organized on the departmental 

' Educational Review, March, 1900. 

'"Provision for Gifted Children in Public Schools," by J. H. 
Van Sickle, Elementary School Teacher, vol. lo, p. 357. 



186 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

plan." Of the 236 preparatory-school pupils who 
graduated up to June, 1910, "41 were in the high 
school proper but two years; 120 were in the high 
school three years, and 75, four years. Among 
the latter were 57 who spent but one year — the 
eighth — in a preparatory centre." 

Van Denburg's investigation^ of the New York 
City high schools shows that only 16 of a group 
of 129 boys and 19 girls out of 221, all of whom 
entered at about fourteen years of age, finished 
on time. 

The effect of mass-education is seen in the re- 
port of Leonard Ayres. In thirty-one cities, taken 
as a whole, "33.7 per cent of the children, or a 
trifle more than one-third, are above normal age 
for their grades." ^ The result of this retardation 
is that "many retarded pupils, finding them- 
selves at the end of the compulsory-attendance 
period one or more grades below the final one, 
leave school without completing the elementary 
course. ^ 

The question, however, involves much more 
than mere promotion. The results of an inves- 
tigation of retardation in three Chicago schools 
"indicate that what we have been calHng retar- 
dation is not retardation but a course of study 

1 "Elimination of Students in Public Secondary Schools," p. 92. 
^ "Laggards in Our Schools," p. 48. 
'Leonard Ayres, op. cit., p. 18. 



VAGARIES OF THE SCHOOL 187 

unsulted to the powers of the children who pur- 
sue It. ^ 

The fate of the rapid thinkers is evidently not 
less tragic than that of the slow. At the age when 
their minds are most alert, when they are keen for 
the conquest of new worlds of knowledge, they are 
chained to the same old mythical "average" that 
drags along their stumbling comrades who are 
in the rear. *'We do not know how to use the 
bright boy's time," writes a grammar-school prin- 
cipal. Five long months are spent by pupils in 
covering work which they could better do in one, 
and all because a committee of adults has de- 
cided that certain topics deserve the assigned 
amount of time. Meanwhile the enthusiasm 
which was kindled at the start gives way to 
hatred for the work. The brighter children learn 
the schooHsh art of adapting their gait to the 
pace of the slow. They would violate the funda- 
mental law of their organism if they did not, for 
adaptation to surrounding conditions is the law 
of life. So their nervous system acquires the 
habit of slow response. Why should they think 
more quickly than the quality of the class re- 
quires? "The school is oblivious of individual 
characteristics," said a principal of wide experi- 

1 " Retardation Statistics of Three Chicago Schools," by Clara 
Schmitt, Elementary School Teacher, vol. lo, p. 492. 



188 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

ence. Then, after a moment's thought, he added : 
"We have all noticed how brightness and intelli- 
gence begin to wear out and to be replaced by in- 
difference and sluggishness." 

Superintendents, generally, with true pedagogic 
fatuity have thought to solve the problem by one 
of their usual partial concessions. They have in- 
troduced half-yearly promotions.^ "Now, if chil- 
dren do not advance as rapidly as their ability 
warrants," they tell us, "the school is not to 
blame." But this only lengthens the rope with 
which bright children are mentally hobbled. In- 
deed, in some instances this half-yearly promotion 
rule contains a joker in the requirement that chil- 
dren to avail themselves of the opportunity must 
be prepared for promotion in all their studies. 
In such cases retardation in one subject forces a 
child to repeat with dreary monotony studies in 
which he already excels. A better plan for mak- 
ing children hate study and reading could hardly 
be invented. The following instance is only one 
of many that could be related: 

A boy in one of our large towns had been un- 
able to attend school because of the necessity of 
financing some of the family's bills from his small 
earnings. He was so bright and studious that he 

^ In a very few schools this plan is extended still further by means 
of intervening class divisions. This lessens the gap which pupils 
must jump. 



VAGARIES OF THE SCHOOL 189 

had taught himself the simple processes of arith- 
metic. He had also made good progress alone in 
learning to read. At twelve years of age he could 
see his way through two years of school, and he 
at once seized the opportunity, full of enthusiasm. 
When the writer learned of the boy, it was found 
that he had already squandered in the second 
grade a goodly part of the precious time which 
he had earned for study. The reason given by the 
principal was that he was deficient in spelling and 
language work. Yet the lad's worth was proven 
not alone by the progress which he had made 
through his own efforts before entering school, but 
also by an amazing knowledge of the cotton in- 
dustry. In reply to the expressions of astonish- 
ment at his information, this twelve-year-old said : 
*'Yes, I know all about everything that they do 
in a cotton factory, but I didn't work there very 
long. I've farmed most of my life." The injus- 
tice of such cases will never he righted until children 
are allowed to advance in each separate subject as 
fast as their ability permits. 

But we have been considering only the more 
evident individual differences of rapid and slow 
thinking. The subtler personaHty hidden in the 
impulses, feeHngs, preferences, prejudices, and 
latent powers of children is not touched by ease 
of promotion. 



190 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

The reduction of individual differences to a 
fairly scientific basis is recent. It has been, of 
course, always obvious that members of the same 
family may differ widely, but these variations, so 
far as they have received any attention, have usu- 
ally been ascribed to the presence or absence of 
perseverance or of moral purpose. If a boy an- 
noyed his teacher instead of studying, it was be- 
cause he was afflicted with rather more than his 
share of original sin. Of course our forefathers 
did not put it in just this way. The studious 
child was not analyzed. He did not need it. 
His submission was accepted as a pleasant fact. 
Wayward children then as now occupied the 
greater part of the teacher's thought. There was, 
however, only one way of dealing with them and 
that was with stern discipline. If this did not 
bring reformation it was because Satan had secured 
too firm a grip. Now that the devil is dead we 
have learned that badness is often a boy's way of 
showing that he is physiologically incapable of 
studying in the manner required by his teacher. 

A child, for example, may be incapable of think- 
ing in visual terms. His memory images are of 
things heard, not seen. It is not unwillingness to 
learn in some other way. He is so made that he 
cannot. His whole nature rebels at doing the re- 
quired visual thinking. What shall he do.^ If he 



VAGARIES OF THE SCHOOL 191 

were a psychologist he might experiment with his 
classmates to learn whether he were "peculiar," 
whether his thoughts were made of different stuff 
from theirs. He could then petition the superin- 
tendent for a method of instruction suited to his 
individuality. But, since he is just a boy, he fol- 
lows a more primitive method of obtaining redress. 
He revolts, and when his teacher chides him for 
inattention to the visual images which seem so 
apt he sulks. Then he is kept after close of 
school and given another assortment of visual 
ideas until, in sheer despair, his teacher dismisses 
him without having taught anything more lasting 
than hatred for stud}^ But ignorance of such in- 
dividual differences as these is only a part of the 
indictment. Many teachers cannot distinguish 
intelligence from stupidity. 

A few years ago the writer studied the lives of 
eminent men and women to learn, if possible, to 
what extent their teachers had discovered their 
ability. Fifty were easily found who were thought 
to be stupid by their teachers.^ The opinion then 
ventured, that the school test of ability is value- 
less because it employs an artificial standard to 
which all children must conform, has since been 
verified by an investigation conducted under the 
direction of the United States Commissioner of 

^"Mind in the Making," chap. I, by Edgar James Swift. 



192 



YOUTH AND THE RACE 



Labor.^ Fortunately, as an answer to those who 
think that men of eminence are in a class by them- 
selves and that general conclusions cannot be 
drawn from their boyhood, the investigation of 
which we are now speaking dealt with those whose 
biographies will probably never be written. 

One hundred and eighty children were taken 
at random and their teachers' estimates of their 
mental abiHty were compared with the subse- 
quent judgment of their employers. The result is 
shown in the following table: 



CAPACITY OF CHILDREN 


teachers' estimates 


employers' estimates 


NUMBER 


PER CENT 


NUMBER 


PER CENT 


Bright 


47 
86 

47 


26.1 
47.8 
26.1 


89 
11 
14 


49-4 

42.8 
7.8 


Average 

Dull 




Total reported 


i8o 


100.0 


180 


lOO.O 



"It will be seen that the employers considered 
nearly half of these children bright, while the 
teachers put only a trifle over one-fourth of them 
in this group, and the employers classed only four- 
teen as dull, against forty-seven whom the teachers 
so described." Evidently the educational machine 
needs overhauling. 

^ "Report on Conditions of Woman and Child Wage-earners in the 
United States," vol. VII, p. 122. 



VAGARIES OF THE SCHOOL 193 

If a boy becomes conspicuous for incorrigibility, 
or if he is hopelessly weak-minded, he at least 
wins the distinction of being a "special case." 
But if he is only intelligent without any special 
aptitude for crime, he is denied the privilege of in- 
dividuality. He must fit into the composite mind- 
transformer as best he can. The supposition is, 
of course, that his very normahty makes it easier 
for him to go through the pedagogical contortions. 
"It is awfully tiresome getting ready to be a man," 
sighed a boy of ten not long ago. "I guess I 
wasn't born right because my way is always 
wrong. I asked teacher yesterday if I couldn't 
make the geography lesson out-of-doors with 
water. It was about rivers, you know; but she 
said I must study the book. I told her I had 
studied it. Then she said the other fellows would 
want to go if I did, so I couldn't. It's funny how 
teachers always want fellows to do the same thing 
when they are made different." 

This lad's intuition caused him to feel the 
misfit which he could not analyze. Children with 
inherited tendencies to motor reactions are put 
under the same scholastic regimen as those whose 
racial heritage draws them more easily to their 
books. Periods in ontogenetic development have 
no rights that conflict with the course of study. 
The curriculum is sacred. It has been so long an 



194 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

established fact that we have forgotten the reason 
for its existence. Periods in the growth of chil- 
dren received scant courtesy when it was made. 
Harmony in the structure of the document was 
the first consideration, and the relation of the va- 
rious subjects of study to one another was the 
guiding principle. Thus formal grammar must 
come early so as to get it out of the way of other 
languages. Besides, behef in the need of gram- 
mar as a prerequisite for the enjoyment of Utera- 
ture has long been a pedagogical obsession. So it 
is placed at an early age when children are men- 
tally least suited to it. In history the possibil- 
ity of separating the topics so that adventurous 
periods may be studied when children thirst for 
action has never been seriously considered. That 
would disturb the unity of the educational scheme. 
Ask for the reason of the position in the curric- 
ulum of any subject and the same fact is evident. 
Nascent periods of development had no part in 
it. Tradition rules. When a display of progress 
requires the introduction of new studies, the stages 
of mental growth are again left out of account. 
Logical sequence of subjects is the superficial 
guide; but since, in this case, sequence depends 
upon the inherited method of treatment, tradi- 
tion remains the controlling force. If one were 
to judge from the school schedule, the subjects 



VAGARIES OF THE SCHOOL 195 

of study must have been produced in unaltera- 
ble succession immediately after the division of 
the land from the waters, and then children created 
to fit them. The individual differences, as well 
as developmental changes, in children are wholly 
ignored. The result is that pupils leave school 
as soon as they can. If forced by their parents 
to remain, their chief benefit comes from associa- 
tion with their fellows and from learning the art 
of appearing wise with little knowledge. "If we 
persist in our inexcusable failure to provide such 
variations during the last years of our so-called 
elementary course, when individual differences ap- 
pear with unmistakable and increasing force, we 
may expect boys and girls to continue as they 
now do to seek in the more tolerable occupations 
of the street, factory, shop, office, and mercantile 
house the kind of interests for which they feel 
an instinctive though vaguely defined need." ^ 

Forced conformity to a system of education in- 
herited from a time when individual differences 
and developmental changes had not been inves- 
tigated, and when the power of racial instincts as 
an educational force was not understood, is the 
fate of children whose minds are not cut by the 
pattern in the superintendent's office. But no 

^ "Getting Our Bearings on Industrial Education," by Jesse D. 
Burk, Elementary School Teacher, vol. 9, pp. 450-1. 



196 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

minds are made on that plan, since the pedagogical 
tailors did not think of individual children. Their 
purpose was to supply an education which would 
be accepted by the greatest number of customers. 
So they made a composite pattern which should 
fit those of a certain age, provided they were like 
ike -pattern. But, unlike venders of ready-made 
clothing, they refuse to alter their goods to meet 
the needs of patrons, for there Is an ancient dogma 
that teachers may compel children to take the 
education offered. It dates from a period when 
educational tailors were learning their trade, and 
so too much could not be expected of them. At 
that time also children were thought to be made 
according to a common plan. The original sketch 
of the plan was all right, but the devil took a 
hand In It before things were finished, and that 
has made a lot of trouble for children even to 
the present day. For teachers have been slow 
to yield the advantage which the devil-idea gives 
them. They use It to strengthen the old tradi- 
tion, giving them absolute educational authority, 
which has been losing some of its mystic power 
In recent years. Of course they employ a more 
euphonious word to-day. Incorrigible sounds bet- 
ter, but it means the same thing. And that is 
what they now call boys who refuse to receive an 
education which does not fit them. 



VAGARIES OF THE SCHOOL 197 

The reasons for contentment with a general- 
ized education which were vahd in the days of 
our forefathers are no longer sufficient. We live 
in a period of investigation and experimentation. 
We can no longer respect theoretical conclusions 
about questions which are amenable to the test 
of experiment. Interminable discussions of such 
subjects, with a continuous performance of meta- 
physical decisions and reversals of these decisions, 
were pardonable during the Middle Ages, but they 
are pathetic to-day. Yet this is the method of 
many pubHc-school superintendents. The exper- 
imental method in the solution of educational 
problems is not in favor with the National Educa- 
tion Association. Speakers frequently appeal to 
experiments, but the reports of the association's 
committees on courses of study and methods 
have the dogmatic certainty of the proceedings 
of mediaeval church councils. 

The attitude of the National Association to- 
ward educational experiments and the office-chair 
method of setthng questions which is followed 
by its committees have given many inefficient 
superintendents ground for believing that they 
are modern. The stimulus to investigate and to 
progress which should be given by the highest 
educational body in the country is wholly lacking. 
The advice which the association offers is based on 



198 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

a generalized human nature which every psycholo- 
gist knows is often only a schematic view of the 
manner in which man acts and reacts. The so- 
called general psychology is coming more and more 
to be separated into individual psychology and the 
psychology of groups of individuals. We know 
now that the individual acts very differently ac- 
cording to the group in which he happens to find 
himself, and we have learned that different persons 
do not always react in the same way to the same 
stimulus or conditions. This is especially signifi- 
cant in education because children are being 
trained to action and behavior. For this reason it 
is supremely important that the individual differ- 
ences of pupils be studied and made the basis of 
the discipline and education which each is to re- 
ceive. And it is of no less importance for ''nor- 
mal" and bright children than for defectives. 
Retardation, as has already been said, is often 
caused by the failure to take the personal psy- 
chology of the child into account. 

The assumption has always been made that 
bright children can take care of themselves. Some 
geniuses have succeeded in doing this, but they 
have done it by ignoring their teachers and their 
work. They have found for themselves the envi- 
ronment required for their mental growth. If this 
is regarded as the method of education peculiarly 



VAGARIES OF THE SCHOOL 199 

adapted to geniuses, it is not very complimen- 
tary to the schools, since it reduces education to 
the chance opportunities which fortune may throw 
in one's way. Would the world have had Michael 
Angelo if he had not been born in a town where, 
during days of truancy, he could loiter in the 
studios of sculptors? The schools are educational 
institutions. At least that is the popular suppo- 
sition. But education consists in helping the tal- 
ents of children to emerge so that the youths may 
become conscious of them. Yet that is the thing 
which few teachers do. The excuse is lack of 
time, and under the regulation of the system they 
are right, because modern education has never 
taken individual aptitude into account in the 
reckoning of school duties. 

It may be said that superior talent will surely 
reveal itself. But we have already seen that, in 
the lower animals, instincts as firmly established 
as the requirements of the species for survival 
can fix them, do not appear without appropriate 
stimulation from the environment. Has talent in 
human beings any stronger incentive to call it 
forth .^ We must not forget that in man oppos- 
ing stimuli are always present. Opportunity to 
enter a trade or profession with what seems to 
be unusually favorable prospects, and the desire to 
quickly become self-supporting, are cases in point. 



200 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

As a matter of fact, talent, under conditions of 
modern life, is exceedingly delicate and must be 
tenderly handled, else it will die at birth. Inves- 
tigations mentioned in an earlier chapter have 
shown a striking connection between genuis on 
the one hand and time and place on the other, 
and the dearth of great productions to-day in 
lines which do not promise good financial returns 
is a matter of general comment. Whatever may 
be true of the inheritance of talent, its creative 
reahzation, and hence its social value, depends 
upon environment. 

The responsibility of the schools here is evident. 
They have the children from the age when ability 
is largely undifferentiated to the time when talent 
should manifest itself if the environment offers 
suitable stimulation. But the inexcusable fact, as 
we have seen, is that teachers rarely discover either 
ordinary intelHgence or unusual talent. They are 
so occupied with hearing lessons that they fail to 
educate. Often, indeed, the very evidence of abil- 
ity is the chief source of annoyance. A boy of 
fourteen worked a year to earn the money with 
which to buy chemicals and apparatus for a lab- 
oratory of his own. It meant many deprivations. 
He refused invitations involving expense that he 
might lay aside the money which he earned by 
selling papers and tending furnaces. At last his 



VAGARIES OF THE SCHOOL 201 

savings-bank account showed twenty-five dollars 
to his credit. He purchased the outfit and ar- 
ranged a little laboratory in his sleeping-room, 
where he worked evenings while his friends were 
on the street and visiting moving-picture shows. 
One day during recess, when the science teacher 
was out of town, he went to the chemical labora- 
tory of the school to repeat an experiment which 
did not "work" the preceding evening at his home. 
He thought that he could finish it before the close 
of recess. At any rate he would surely hear the 
bell. But in his absorption in the work, a strange 
fact from the pedagogical point of view, time went 
faster than he expected, and when at last the ex- 
periment was successfully done he found that it 
was twenty minutes past the ringing of the bell, 
and he had not heard it. At the close of school 
the teacher told him to remain. When the others 
had left he explained his tardiness, and then his 
punishment was doubled because he was not only 
late but had entered the laboratory without per- 
mission. And his sin was enthusiasm for study 
beyond the class prescription! 

It is not considered good form for children to 
mature according to their own individuality. 
Committees have worked it all out and they 
know just how children should develop. Any 
deviation from their plans is an educational mon- 



202 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

strosity which must be promptly suppressed, lest 
the belief in the right to grow through one's own 
powers spread and depreciate the value of the 
miscellaneous collection of antique pedagogical 
ideas. Naturally the superintendents of whom 
we have been speaking do not wish to lose their 
stock in trade, because it is always hard to make 
a new start in life. Besides, if the claim of one 
child to his own personal sort of development 
were allowed, others might insist upon the same 
privilege. This would create a bad precedent, and 
a precedent is something to be avoided. It is a 
dangerous thing. Think what chaos this would 
cause in a school of two thousand children! That 
would mean two thousand youngsters each with 
his own personality, and every one claiming the 
right to grow in his own way. What would be- 
come of the system which has been carefully built 
up and improved until it can turn out each year 
a limitless number of fac-similes .^ 

The test of efficiency is the product, and the 
condemnatory fact about our public-school sys- 
tem is its failure to obtain results. The majority 
of children escape it from day to day if they can, 
and they anticipate with keenest joy the time 
when they may legally leave it forever. The few 
teachers who have played an important part in 
shaping the careers of eminent men have been 



VAGARIES OF THE SCHOOL 203 

those who broke away from traditional methods. 
They have thought of education as mental devel- 
opment rather than as the acquisition of a given 
stint of information, and in their training they 
have taken thought of the personal traits of their 
pupils. That is not so easy to-day, because over- 
seers are often employed to prevent it. These 
overseers are given a less opprobrious title, but it 
comes to the same thing. They are called super- 
visors. Their purpose is to see that the teachers 
obey the rules regarding the course of study and 
the method of presentation. In some instances 
there are also supervisors of supervisors who in 
turn must draw their intellectual nourishment 
from assistant superintendents, and these again 
drink at the fountain of method in the superin- 
tendent's sanctuary. It is doubtful if a more 
marvellous confusion could be devised. No one 
below the pedagogical divinity has any authority. 
The teacher is helpless. And he is always in fear 
of the penalty of transgression. 

Under these conditions, if a teacher is con- 
vinced that departure from the rules would ben- 
efit some of his pupils he presents the request to 
his principal. The principal then asks the assist- 
ant superintendent, the assistant superintendent 
asks the superintendent, and the superintendent, 
if, as is often the case, he wishes to escape respon- 



204 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

sibility, asks the board of education, and the 
board refers it to a committee. These are all 
over and above the supervisors to whom we just 
referred. This is the educational conduit when 
the system is not of the most approved model. 
The latest improvements, at least in our largest 
city, have given us a few notable additions, such as 
assistant principals, district superintendents, and 
associate superintendents. When the request of 
which we were speaking has passed through the 
labyrinthine channel it reaches its destination so 
wonderfully improved that one is lost in admira- 
tion at the marvellous reconstructive power of the 
system. It evolves the simplest question into a 
terrifying spectre. "We cannot recognize our own 
question when it comes back to us tagged with 
the answer," remarked a teacher. When the an- 
swer is received the personality of the referee is 
often hidden in that most diplomatic of all pro- 
nouns, "it." "It has been decided" is the way 
the answer often runs. Surely no better system 
for shirking responsibility could have been in- 
vented. Naturally, teachers soon cease to make 
requests, and the children are left to get along as 
best they may. 

The pathetic side of all this is that these ques- 
tions concern the welfare of live children for whose 
growth and development they are of vital impor- 



VAGARIES OF THE SCHOOL 205 

tance. Yet, in city and country alike, such ques- 
tions are decided by men who have no adequate 
knowledge of the children in behalf of whom they 
are asked. The teacher who works with them 
every day is the only one who has that knowl- 
edge, and he has no authority to act. Indeed, 
only in rare instances does he have opportunity 
to present his case, since it is a part of the ethics 
of "the system" that communications take the 
prescribed course which, though varying in length 
with the size of the town, is always long enough 
to diffuse and evaporate responsibility. Cases 
of supreme importance to the life of boys and 
girls are decided as though they were questions of 
financial investment to be settled by a committee 
of directors with reference solely to their benefit 
to the corporation. That is, in fact, the basis of 
decision because the paramount preliminary ques- 
tion always is, "If we grant this, will it cause us 
trouble?" Superintendents, in small and large 
towns alike, rarely assume authority because, if 
trouble arises, they wish to shield themselves be- 
hind the impersonal board of education. 

The centralization of the privilege of thinking 
has produced an educational machine of tiresome 
uniformity. As the number of traditional author- 
ities who furnish ideas is limited, a depressing 
sameness extends throughout the country. The 



206 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

poorer schools are not distinguished from the bet- 
ter so much by a different method as by a worse 
handling of the same method. 

Conformity to official methods has been made 
in many places the test of teaching efficiency, and 
the teachers who secure promotion are those who 
adapt themselves most successfully to the tradi- 
tional ideas of their school system. Outlines of 
opinions of educational reformers are taught as 
the history of education. Moreover, the exact 
period in antiquity of the author of each present- 
day book on methods can be determined from the 
reformer whom he has disinterred for his educa- 
tional model. If the results of this embalmed ped- 
agogy are not good, and there are those who say 
that they are not, the blame is put upon the raw 
material delivered to the schools to be worked up 
into an intelligent, social product. This is a safe 
position to take, because no one can prove that a 
boy who leaves school with hatred for study, and 
without any strong purpose in life, did not in- 
herit these undesirable qualities from some aber- 
rant ancestor. As we all have such forbears, one 
cannot help admiring the clever strategy shown 
in the selection of such an impregnable position. 
To be sure, the intrenchments of these school- 
men, as we have seen, are just now being under- 
mined by republics for criminally inclined boys, 



VAGARIES OF THE SCHOOL 207 

but as no oligarchy has ever abandoned a posi- 
tion before its defences were blown up by public 
opinion, it is too soon to expect a realignment 
of forces. 

One of the causes of this conservatism of su- 
perintendents is their fear of reprisals from their 
constituency. Progressively inclined men admit 
this. "Few of us can hope to make a national 
reputation," remarked one not long ago, "and our 
only hope of being called to a larger school with 
a higher salary is to keep one position until an- 
other is obtained. This means that we must not 
antagonize the public by introducing unpopular 
innovations." This diagnosis is fairly correct. 
Self-preservation requires one to hold one's po- 
sition. The educational welfare of the children, 
therefore, is a secondary matter. At whatever cost 
to them the public must be kept contented. This 
produces an artificial selection of mediocre men, 
since those of quality refuse to adapt themselves 
to such stultifying conditions. As officials selected 
in this way are not of the creative sort, most of 
those who survive do so by adopting traditional 
doctrines. No effective opposition to a superin- 
tendent can arise so long as he walks circum- 
spectly in the paths which his professional an- 
cestors have trodden. On the other hand, the 
attitude of the pubHc toward innovations is un- 



208 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

certain. Pestalozzi and Herbart cannot be quoted 
in support of them. The old men of the tribal 
community, in whom wisdom rests, are sure to 
disapprove. It seems wise, therefore, to follow 
established methods. So the vicious circle re- 
peats itself. 

Naturally, timid superintendents, who always 
keep their fingers on the public pulse so as im- 
mediately to detect a rise of temperature, do not 
wish to have constructive principals under them. 
Subordinates with ideas are a menace. If their 
innovations do not create trouble, they may still 
be startling enough to make the people take no- 
tice, and such superintendents do not wish the 
public gaze of approval to be turned from their 
office. They must be the acknowledged source of 
all improvements. Therefore they desire imita- 
tors in their system. Only strong independent 
men dare to gather original thinkers around them. 

The same disastrous effect of this artificial 
selection extends down through the system and 
draws to the schools a body of teachers who must 
earn their living and who do not know what else 
to do. Since it is generally known that teachers 
are not allowed to carry out their own construc- 
tive ideas the capable men and women who are 
not merely seeking a respectable job tend to 
enter other lines of work. One bit of evidence is 



VAGARIES OF THE SCHOOL 209 

the deplorable situation which has recently been 
discovered in Portland, Maine. The pubUc hbrary 
of that city issues teachers' cards which enable 
the holder to draw five non-fiction books at one 
time. At the time of the last published report 
only twenty-five^ of these cards had been issued 
to public-school teachers, and there are two 
hundred and ninety-five teachers in the schools. 
If this is indicative of the proportion of non- 
fiction readers among the public-school teachers 
of the country, and there is no reason to sup- 
pose Portland to be exceptional, how can they be 
expected to develop the children who come un- 
der them? The first requirement in one who is 
to teach others to think is that he himself be a 
thinker, and it seems evident that public-school 
teachers do not satisfy the test. But, as we have 
seen, the selective process which prevails in most 
schools turns away thinkers. 

Complete development means specialized growth. 
Every child is a complex of undifferentiated 
strength and weakness. The teacher is the ana- 
lyst who is to separate the ingredients which make 
up the individual boys and girls, and, by deter- 
mining the significance of each component factor. 



'"Annual Report, 1910." The report gives thirty-one teachers' 
cards, but the writer has learned that six of these were taken by 
teachers in a private school. 



210 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

to utilize all the forces that make for growth. 
Mass-education which requires each child to con- 
form to a stereotyped system should be replaced 
by a flexible plan of education that affords oppor- 
tunity for the play of mental forces. It is not 
reasonable to expect unlike children to react with 
equal benefit to the same demands. Each one 
requires his own special sort of mental stimula- 
tion. Though the reorganization of the curricu- 
lum is important, the fundamental educational 
need is flexibility in method. Education should 
be adapted to varying personalities instead of re- 
quiring each child to adapt himself to a fixed plan 
of growth. Diversity of ability is required in the 
evolution of human society. This is one of the 
differences between man and the lower animals. 
Among the latter the demands of survival for- 
bid marked variation. Animals are obhged to 
conform to the conditions set by nature, and the 
examinations which they must pass are always 
made out on the same plan. Unusual ability 
which varies from the type has no place here. 
Now, curiously enough, the schools have adopted 
the same plan, and stamp with disapproval all de- 
partures from their design. A certain standard of 
eflficiency is assumed, and those who do not con- 
form receive low marks. That is what nature 
does in her school, only she is so irritated that 



VAGARIES OF THE SCHOOL 211 

she kills those who fail. The teacher, on the 
other hand, only retards his pupils in their school 
progress and, incidentally, in their mental growth. 

Reorganization of our educational system to 
meet the demands of individual variation is the 
modern educational problem. But school systems 
have become such a fascinating subject of study 
that the atomic individuals for whom the systems 
were devised have been forgotten; the enlarge- 
ment and perpetuation of the organization is more 
important than the welfare of the children. An 
eminent German educator who visited our coun- 
try not long ago, when asked his opinion of our 
schools, replied, with dry humor, that the thing 
which impressed him most was their similarity. 
But this similarity is such as we have seen in the 
animal method. 

The directors of our educational systems should 
grasp the fact that new conditions require corre- 
sponding changes in education. In the earher his- 
tory of our country the ignorance of some teachers 
and the lack of time of others forced children to 
do a little thinking. Since, through force of cir- 
cumstances, the boys and girls of that period were 
left to their own devices, they naturally did their 
thinking in their own way. They were blessed 
with absence of system. The schools did not 
then run on schedule time, with the text-book 



212 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

page which must be reached on a certain day- 
marked in the plan. Now a prescribed distance 
is run each day in order not to "lose time." The 
result of the time-table method is that much of 
the work is done for the pupils by the teacher. 
The book is to be covered and the class must be 
kept together. So there is no other way than for 
the teacher to do the work and then to show the 
children how he did it. And so great is the joy 
of the teacher in his splendid exposition that he 
is sure they all understand it. Yet one of the 
educational maxims is that we learn by doing, 
and not by hearing or seeing. Of course, this ra- 
pidity of transportation leaves some of the pupils 
scattered along the right of way, but not so many 
as the speed would warrant, since many are kept 
from falling off by the teacher because his teach- 
ing-efficiency is graded in part by the number 
who go through to the end of the journey. 

It is a trite statement that education does not 
consist in the number of pages gone over, yet it 
seems necessary to make it. Every child has his 
own way of approaching a subject of study, and 
his mental development requires that his person- 
ality be reckoned with. His way may not always 
be the best, but whatever improvement is made 
must come through and not against his own Hne 
of approach. Children with keen love for science 



VAGARIES OF THE SCHOOL 213 

or literature have been made to hate the work 
by the formaUsm of the school. It is time to 
start a crusade against the vending of cold-storage 
pedagogy. 



CHAPTER VI 
FALLACIES IN MORAL TRAINING 

Our New England forefathers had the right 
idea regarding the relation of mental and moral 
training in the schools when they inserted in the 
"New England Primer": 

"Good children must 

Fear God all day, 
Parents obey, 
No false things say, 
By no sin stay, 
Love Christ alway, 
In secret pray, 
Mind little play, 
Make no delay 

In doing good." 

Evidently our ancestors were convinced that the 
mental and moral elements in education should 
not be separated; and when they put into the 
same primer under F, so that the infant in learn- 
ing his letters could not miss it, "Foolishness is 
bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of 
correction shall drive it from him," they associ- 
ated discipline with mental and moral training, 

214 



FALLACIES IN MORAL TRAINING 215 

and the education of the child was complete. 
The compilers of this wonderful little " New Eng- 
land Primer" were certainly right in their deter- 
mination to educate the whole child instead of 
dividing him up into sections, with a distinct ma- 
teria medica for each part. 

The unity of mind has always been difficult to 
comprehend. Early modern psychology divided 
the soul into faculties each of which was supposed 
to be trained separately and specifically. This 
error still prevails in popular psychologies de- 
signed more for pedagogic effect than for truth- 
ful statement of fact. 

This compartment idea of the mind has been the 
cause of fallacies which have been attended with 
unfortunate results in elementary and secondary 
education. The belief in a faculty of memory has 
led to an exaggerated estimation of the value of 
unrelated facts and information which, in their 
chaotic state, serve as a nervous irritant that would 
seriously obstruct mental activity were they not 
sloughed off by the mind in the healing process. 
Nature has endowed boys with a beneficent in- 
difference to indigestible mental fodder, just as 
we are told she has taught birds to reject poison- 
ous caterpillars. It seems to be her way of pro- 
tecting her offspring from rapid destruction. The 
difference is that children may be compelled to 



216 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

take the food offered by their teachers, and for 
this reason they are Hkely to suffer from mental 
gastritis. 

But still more disastrous, perhaps, has been the 
separation of the mental from the moral in devel- 
opment. The schools have limited themselves to 
intellectual instruction while moral training has 
been relegated to the home and to such other in- 
fluences as parents may select. Unfortunately, 
the home does not always perform the duty which 
has been assigned to it. A large proportion of 
juvenile delinquents come from homes which do 
not function. One-half of the delinquents and 
nearly three-fourths of the neglected children in 
charge of the juvenile court of Saint Louis come 
from homes in which the parents are not living 
together.^ Considerably more than fifty per cent 
of those entering the Indiana Boys' School have 
lost one or both parents by separation or death, 
and one or both parents of half the boys in the 
same reformatory are intemperate. Of those in 
the Illinois State Reformatory more than fifty 
have lost one or both parents. ^ 

While the schools cannot take the place of the 
home the question may very properly be raised 
as to whether they may not be so organized as to 

* "Report of the Juvenile Court, 1910," p. 66. 

* See last reports from these institutions. 



FALLACIES IN MORAL TRAINING 217 

become a more efficient social force. Of course 
we all know just what ought to be accomplished. 
The schools should be made so thorough that the 
graduates will be equipped for any occupation, 
and so interesting that the children will antici- 
pate each day's session as they now do a hohday. 
Then there would be no complaint from business 
men that high-school boys cannot spell, or cipher, 
or write correct English; and college freshmen 
would justify the first part of James Russell Low- 
ell's statement that Cambridge is very learned, 
** because the freshmen bring so much knowledge 
into the town and the seniors take so little away.'* 
The difficulty, however, is to produce the situa- 
tion which we all agree is desirable. It is not easy 
to unite the complex ingredients that make up 
study and boy into a mixture that will not fer- 
ment and explode. Perhaps one trouble is that 
the compound has been too tightly corked. 

The biographies of eminent men show that the 
teachers who exercised the greatest influence over 
their lives were the ones who were most completely 
emancipated from rules and systems.^ It is to be 
regretted that biographies are limited to men who 
have become famous. But for boys less fortu- 
nately endowed mentally we have the evidence 
of self-governing schools, as well as the various 

* "Mind in the Making," by Edgar James Swift, chap. III. 



218 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

junior republics and reformative institutions, to 
which reference has been made in earHer chap- 
ters, that those of ordinary abihty, and even such 
as have excellent criminal prospects, reciprocate 
with amazing faithfulness the confidence imposed 
in them. When we ask the reason for this mu- 
tual interchange of confidence, psychology gives 
the answer. Man, we have said, reacts to a stim- 
ulus in like manner to its action upon him. If 
he stubs his toe on a stone he is prone to kick 
the obstruction. When he refrains it is for social 
rather than ethical reasons. In his dealings with 
his fellow men also, he gives in kind what he 
receives. 

The prisoners of the Montpelier (Vermont) jail 
go about the town just hke other men, perform- 
ing the work at which they are employed.^ They 
have no guards because they do not need them. 
Under the old system the sheriff was in constant 
fear of a jail delivery. And he had cause for his 
anxiety. When at work the men formerly did 
only as much as was necessary to escape the pen- 
alty of insubordination. "I'm doing just as little 
as I can and not be punished, and I'm going to 
keep on. You would do the same," said one of 
the prisoners to the sheriff. This was when the 

1 See "Humanizing the Prisons," by Morrison I. Swift, Atlantic 
Monthly, vol. io8, 191 1, p. 170. 



FALLACIES IN MORAL TRAINING 219 

men received no compensation for their work 
and were constantly watched by officious guards. 
Now that they are not watched and receive all 
over one dollar that their labor brings, they do 
an honest day's work. During the four years of 
this system of trusting the men, only two out of 
eight hundred prisoners allowed full freedom have 
attempted to escape. This is a remarkable ex- 
ample of the principle that in human relations 
action and reaction are of the same kind. Men 
give back what they get. 

Every teacher knows that this is also the way 
with boys. The bad ones are those of good stuff. 
But they cannot be managed by punishment. 
They have too much independence for that sort 
of treatment. They react to the punishment in the 
same way that the punishment acts upon them. 
Their resentment, however, goes out to the method 
and system, and not, as a rule, to the one who is 
responsible for the pain and humiliation. They 
play according to the rules of the game and try 
to beat the system. The result is that punish- 
ment becomes a continuous procedure. A vicious 
chain of action and reaction is set up — misde- 
meanor, punishment, misdemeanor, punishment. 
The writer once taught in a school where delin- 
quents were kept after school to learn the lessons 
which they had not studied during school hours, 



220 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

or to atone for other pedagogical sins. The strik- 
ing fact was that the same boys and girls were 
always detained. They expected to be kept and 
never made engagements which would interfere 
with the usual course of events, much as one does 
not try to thwart nature's law of gravitation. Ex- 
tra periods of work were an accepted part of their 
school routine. Yet, notwithstanding the trouble 
which they caused, I may add, with a wider 
knowledge of the nature of young savages, that 
they were the choicest specimens in the room. 

Place beside this another picture. On the floor 
in the back of the school-room are three boys bus- 
ily working over a relief map which they can see 
better in this position than if it were hung upon 
the wall. In a corner of the room, far enough 
away to avoid disturbance, a small girl is drilling 
one of her schoolmates in United States history, 
and in the cloak-room two children are working 
over spelling. Boys and girls move about, but a 
little observation shows that they are attending 
to their business, going to one place or another 
as they need books or material for their work. 
Everywhere the order of the workshop prevails 
rather than that of the school. When the teacher 
was asked if the confusion did not distract the 
attention of the children, she replied: "Judge for 
yourself. They are all at work, and they pay no 



FALLACIES IN MORAL TRAINING 221 

attention to what others are doing unless it con- 
cerns their own work." 

"Do you keep children after school?" 

"Oh, no! There is no occasion for that. Each 
one does all that he can, and that is all one 
should expect." 

"What about the discipline?" 

"DiscipHne! That takes care of itself," And 
then she added: "A teacher needs three qualifica- 
tions: knowledge of her subject, recognition of the 
rights of children, and a sense of humor." 

I have reflected much about the last two of 
these quaUfications since making the acquaintance 
of this school: the right of children to lead their 
racial life, to feel, in sport, the thrills that tingled 
through the nerves of primitive man in danger; 
their right to initiate action, to decide upon the 
proper course of conduct under conditions suited 
to their years; the right not to be bored. 

The teacher, Hke the preacher, has his audience 
at his mercy. In both instances, this is one of 
the obstacles to raising the average eflScienc}^ 
above mediocrity. With children the state of 
being bored is a fertile culture for various dis- 
orders, chiefly ethical, since self-control is a habit 
long before it is a principle of conduct. Pro- 
fessor Edward L. Thorndike once suggested that 
a court stenographer be a part of the equipment 



222 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

of every college, to take down in shorthand all 
that the lecturer said. It would be an admira- 
ble stimulus to efficiency. The writer would urge 
the extension of the plan to the elementary and 
secondary schools.^ Could a teacher occasionally 
read everything that he said during his lecture or 
recitation he would wonder less at the inatten- 
tion and lack of self-control of his hearers. 

We have found that to keep boys contented 
with their work things must move. This is a re- 
freshing, hopeful fact. It gives opportunity to 
create situations from which children may ab- 
sorb ethical ideas. After all, much of our effec- 
tive education in early life comes by absorption. 
If situations are cleverly planned, children react 
to them from the ethical points of view round 
which the plans are focussed. They react in this 
way because the situations require just this sort 
of reaction to secure the results which the chil- 
dren themselves desire. In arranging an educa- 
tional situation, the criterion of success, as in all 
other plans, is, will it work.? Given the thing 
that you wish boys to do, or the conclusion to 
which you wish them to come, then the problem 

^As this book is going through the press the writer learns that 
a court stenographer has been used by Dr. Romiett Stevens in an 
experimental study of the recitation. See the Teachers' College 
Record, September, 1910, and "The Question as a Measure of 
Efficiency in Instruction," 1912. 



FALLACIES IN MORAL TRAINING 223 

is to produce such a set of conditions as will make 
the desired kind of action inevitable. This, of 
course, requires a profound knowledge of child 
psychology, but no one should teach who lacks 
such knowledge. 

One may not be able to predict the action of a 
single individual, but the response of a group of 
boys under known conditions can be as positively 
foretold as the rising of the morning sun. Nat- 
urally, the frankness and tact of the teacher — in- 
deed, all that belongs to the vague but meaning- 
ful term, personaHty — are important factors in the 
problem. Boys receive credit for being the un- 
certain, indeterminable element of the school-room. 
This is one of the popular pedagogical fallacies. 
The notion is a convenient excuse for incompe- 
tent teachers. This accounts for its general ac- 
ceptance. It has been repeated so many times 
that its truthfulness seems self-evident. 

Now, as a matter of fact, boys are painfully con- 
sistent. Perhaps consistency is a primitive char- 
acteristic. At all events, the lower animals possess 
it in a high degree. Were this not true they 
could not be trapped so easily. Among men, prog- 
ress in knowledge disturbs the fixed system of 
ideas. To-day's thoughts may find no intellec- 
tual or moral sanction to-morrow. Boys are more 
dependable because they have fewer conflicting 



224 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

ideas. Their principles of conduct may not al- 
ways appeal to us, but they are consistent with 
the ethics of their group. More than this, the 
morale of a group is always consistent with itself. 
But it is excessively sensitive to external influ- 
ences. It responds with astonishing delicacy to 
altered conditions. We have found illustrations 
of this in the deHnquent children of the better 
sort of reform schools and in the Cleveland Boys' 
Home. In their native haunts of the congested 
districts the demands of the boys are for crimi- 
nal acts. Under changed conditions the impulses 
are altered. In both cases they are consistent 
and predictable. Evidently the fulcrum here is 
the situation in which the boys are placed. 

We have found the various forms of pupil self- 
government eminently successful in creating edu- 
cational situations for promoting ethical habits of 
conduct through self-control. WilHam George gives 
an instance from the history of his junior republic. 

Mr. George had been staging his usual morning 
whipping scene to the dehght of the assembled 
boys and girls. He chanced to glance over the 
company, "and a look of expectancy was plainly 
written on every face." Suddenly it occurred to 
him to make the children the judges. of the guilt 
of the accused. But let Mr. George describe the 
scene in his own words. 



FALLACIES IN MORAL TRAINING 225 

" * I am going to let Lanky and Curly tell their 
story to you,' he said to the boys, 'and then I 
am going to let you decide whether they shall be 
punished or go free. It's up to you.' 

"In an instant there was a change of attitude 
on the part of every boy and girl present. They 
straightened up in their seats, nodded approval to 
one another and likewise to me. There was a 
new light in the features of each one of the entire 
company of those young people. This light pleased 
me. I felt that justice would be done. 

" 'Now, son, you may get up and tell your fel- 
low-citizens all about the matter.' 

"Lanky was regarded as something of a wit, 
and he had a peculiar drawl in his speech. He 
arose solemnly, elevated his eyes to the roof of 
the tent, then gradually turned on a pivot, until 
he presented a front to the company. All this 
time he kept his eyes elevated. 

*"0h, no; I hain't stole no apples. Oh, no!' 
he said solemnly. 

"This was intended to throw the entire com- 
pany into convulsions, and under ordinary circum- 
stances it would have been a successful effort, 
but now not an individual even smiled. This 
had the effect of instantly disconcerting Lanky. 
His head and his eyes dropped suddenly, and for 
the first time he gazed into the faces of his com- 



226 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

panions, and Lanky saw the same expression upon 
their faces that I had seen, but the effect on him 
was entirely different. 

"It was a keen, discriminating jury that he was 
facing. The idea of their regarding him as a cul- 
prit filled him momentarily with anger. The pre- 
sumption of their daring to decide on his case! 
That defiance that is seen so often in street boys 
flamed forth. 

"'Aw, every one of youse has stolen apples,' 
he snapped out. 

"No one replied, but steadily they gazed at 
him as much as to say: 'Have you anything else 
to offer?' 

"Then Lanky got rattled. Stage fright with 
all its horrors suddenly seized him. Every trace 
of defiance suddenly vanished on the instant, and 
he stood a pathetic picture before them. What 
could he do to extricate himself? 

"'Say, fellers,' he snivelled, 'I didn't steal 
de apples. Curly here is de bloke w'at stole 
dem.' 

"It took but an instant for him to see that this 
was the worst course he could possibly have 
adopted. Two or three said: 'Shame! Shame!' 
and although it had prejudiced his case, it had 
served to bring back the defiance in his nature 
and he suddenly bawled out: 



FALLACIES IN MORAL TRAINING 227 

"*Aw, kill me if youse wan' ter,' and he sat 
down. 

"I turned to the company and said, *Is he 
guilty or not guilty?' 

"There was a momentary pause. One boy in 
the crowd, evidently thinking that they did not 
know what I meant, shouted out: 

"'He wants to know wedder he done it or wed- 
der he didn't done it.' 

"Up went a perfect howl: *He done it.' 

"It was now Curly's turn. So he arose and 
said with perfect frankness: 'Yes, I took de ap- 
ples, but Lanky didn't play me quite a square deal 
when he said I took all of dem. I don't know 
which one of us took de most. I don't t'ink we 
counted, but I took me share, and I'm willin' to 
take me share of de thrashing, but I just want 
ter tell youse fellers dat I'm goin' ter hold up me 
right hand and promise dat I hope ter die if I 
ever take any more, 'cause I know 'tain't right 
ter steal, and me mudder would feel orful bad if 
she know'd I had been crookin', and dat's all I 
got ter say.' And with that neat little speech he 
dropped down on the bench, buried his face in 
his hands, and cried as if his heart would break. 

"I said: 'Is he guilty?' 

"No hand was raised. 

"'Not guilty?' 



228 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

"Not a hand appeared. Instead a very ani- 
mated conversation suddenly took place between 
the assembled company. They were evidently 
discussing all the fine points. A group of older 
lads at the rear of the tent seemed to be partic- 
ularly absorbed in the discussion of the case. 
Finally one of that group said: 

"'Mister George, dere hain't no doubt 'bout it. 
Curly is guilty; but say, Mister George, won't 
youse please go light on him?' 

"There was a clear recommendation for mercy, 
and I proceeded to *go light' on Curly — light 
enough, I may say, to suit the most sentimental 
critic. '■ 

Social and ethical attitudes grow out of the re- 
lation between ideas. The social feehng varies 
in different individuals because of the various 
forms which these relationships take. The writer 
once spent several days with a tramp and was 
able, through friendship, to learn something of 
the philosophy of his actions. "If I work," he 
said, "I can only earn my Hving, because my em- 
ployer will take the rest. I can get a living with- 
out working, so what's the use of tiring myself 
out?" From his point of view the argument was 
unanswerable. But he had very strong convic- 
tions against robbery. 

1 "The Junior Republic," by William R. George, pp. 44-48. 



FALLACIES IN MORAL TRAINING 229 

The two sorts of selves so noticeable in crimi- 
nals reveal an interesting double system of ideas, 
one referring to society at large and the other 
relating to their own set. "The criminal," says 
Josiah Flynt, "has two systems of morality: one 
for his business and the other for the * hang-out.' 
The first is this: 'Society admits that the quarrel 
with me is over after I have served out my sen- 
tence; and I, naturally enough, take the same 
view of the matter. It is simply one of take and 
pay. I take something from society and give in 
exchange so many years of my life. If I come 
out ahead, so much the better for me. If society 
comes out ahead, so much the worse for me, and 
there is no use in whimpering over the transac- 
tion." ^ But in his *' hang-out" the situation is 
changed. "The criminal," continues Flynt, "has 
treated me with an altruism that even a Tolstoi 
might admire. ... It is a notorious fact that he 
will * divvy' his last meal with a pal, . . . and I 
have never known him to tell me a lie or to cheat 
me or to make fun of me behind my back. ... It 
sometimes happens in his raids that he makes 
mistakes and gets into the wrong house, or has 
been deceived about the wealth of his victims; 
and if he discovers that he has robbed a poor 
man, or one who cannot conveniently bear the 

^ "Tramping with Tramps," p. 22. 



230 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

loss, he is ashamed and never enjoys the plunder 
thus won." 

It looks as though the criminal were an aver- 
age sort of man with several partially contradic- 
tory systems of ideas, wherein he is much like the 
rest of mankind. He differs from those of us 
who by courtesy are called "normal," in the nat- 
ure of his ideas and in the sorts of contradictions 
which prevail among them. His ethics makes 
him faithful to his friends, which is not always 
true of non-criminals, and the same code justi- 
fies him in taking money from those who, in his 
judgment, need it less than he himself. In this 
last characteristic his dissent from modern busi- 
ness procedure is more a difference of method than 
of fact. Circumstances have doubtless caused this 
slight divergence. It certainly is not always lack 
of ability, for, according to Flynt, they "are often 
gifted with talents which would enable them to 
do well in any class could they only be brought 
to realize their responsibilities and to take advan- 
tage of opportunities." The hierarchy of ideas 
amid which those men grew up evidently played 
a tremendously important part in shaping their 
ideals of conduct. This is shown, among other 
things, by their double system of ethics. Hered- 
ity might be invoked to explain their social an- 

^ Flynt, op. cit., pp. 23-24. 



FALLACIES IN MORAL TRAINING 231 

tagonisms were it not for the contradictions which 
they so often manifest to those anti-social atti- 
tudes. They are not made up wholly of social 
antagonisms. Their altruism among their fellows, 
mentioned by Flynt, their keen, if novel, feeling 
for justice, which forbids robbing the poor, and 
their readiness for new adaptations, amounting 
often to a complete reorganization of ideas and 
habits of action, as seen in the Colorado prison- 
ers, cannot be accounted for by a theory of fixed 
heredity. 

If we regard the criminal impulses of these men 
as racial instincts cultivated in a vicious environ- 
ment during early life, the contradictions and re- 
adaptations become intelligible. The problem of 
ethical growth in children then becomes largely 
a question of instincts either properly developed 
or else deferred to a period when they are no 
longer dominating forces. The racial impulses 
tend toward the primitive life. These instincts, 
as we have seen, are legitimate in children, but 
if allowed to mature in the primitive manner into 
adult Hfe, they produce an habitual criminal. 
Some of the ways in which these impulses may be 
controlled and utilized for mental and moral 
growth have been discussed in preceding chapters. 
The essential point here is that when they are di- 
verted into educative channels by putting respon- 



232 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

sibility and authority upon the boys, or through 
adventurous actions which both satisfy the racial 
longing and lead to social judgments, the primi- 
tive mode of expression of the racial instincts may 
be deferred till their virulent period has passed. 
Meanwhile habits of ethical conduct are estab- 
Hshed. 

The struggle to fit into the conditions of their 
environment is just as intense a problem for chil- 
dren as for adults. Boys are continually trying, 
in a more or less random fashion, to cope success- 
fully with the situations that confront them. It 
is the method of trial and error, and the action 
finally adopted is the one which secures the de- 
sired result. InteUigence does not yet play a 
leading part in determining action. The reason 
for this is that the experience which would fur- 
nish the means of judging results is lacking in 
children. Consequently their efforts to succeed 
are more or less fortuitous, depending on the ag- 
gregation of circumstances. The estimate of re- 
sults is, of course, a relative one. The standard 
of success is created by the environment, and 
adaptation to this standard is enforced by the 
prevaiHng sentiment. 

The great mass of boys are left to situations 
that arise from chance. The conditions surround- 
ing them are unplanned, as with the lower ani- 



FALLACIES IN MORAL TRAINING 233 

mals. Now, the same adaptations prevail in man 
as in the animals below him. The difference 
between the two in this respect consists in the 
greater ability of man to foresee results and 
profit by experience. Children, as we have seen, 
lack the experience from which they might profit, 
consequently the ethical problem is to surround 
them with conditions which shall stimulate the 
desired reaction. The superior intelligence of the 
adult lays this duty upon him. We have the 
problem of directing intelHgence, for nature can- 
not do this intelHgently, since it is itself unintelli- 
gent. The situations which it creates are chance 
variations. Man, on the other hand, can decide 
upon desirable lines of progress and create condi- 
tions which will call out new adaptations in the 
youth. In doing this he is not overruling nat- 
ure, but is simply employing its forces intelli- 
gently. 

Talking, in conjunction with the rod, has al- 
ways been a favorite means of moral training. It 
is the easiest way and is agreeable to the speaker. 
Expounding one's ideas is a pleasant occupation. 
It gives one a comfortable feeling of moral worth 
to be setting the world right. But advice can 
never outweigh the conditions of life which op- 
pose it. The efficient way is to beset children 
with situations which appeal to them as creations 



234 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

of their own thoughts. Then they react toward 
them as they do toward their games, with enthu- 
siasm and frankness. Thus morahty becomes an 
integral part of their school business, and its ob- 
servance is enforced by the group sentiment among 
the children which forbids deception, loafing, or 
unfairness. In this way the double system of 
morality so commonly found in schools is eUm- 
inated, and the children grow into the feehng 
that the mental and moral hfe are not separate 
compartments to be opened or closed according 
to convenience or utility. 

Children act morally long before they know 
why they do so. The discussion of principles of 
conduct comes later. Indeed it is a mistake to 
make boys and girls overconscious of ethical mo- 
tives. For this reason a period set apart for 
moral instruction is likely to be disastrous. The 
instructing attitude regarding conduct is always 
resented. The entire school-work should be a 
continuous exhibition of moral action, and the 
greater the freedom allowed, the more spontane- 
ous and habitual will the conduct become. Coer- 
cion and restraint are effective only so long as 
the pressure is on. Excitement is seething be- 
neath, and the moment the restraining force is 
relaxed, disorder boils over. Social discontent 
never fermented more in Germany or gained so 



FALLACIES IN MORAL TRAINING 235 

many adherents as under the iron rule of Bis- 
marck, when even the pastor of the American 
church in Berlin was unable to secure permission 
to hold Sunday evening meetings in his house 
without the presence of a policeman. The same 
condition of suppressed disorder is observed in 
schools which are controlled merely by the au- 
thority of the teacher. The only effective order 
is that which arises in the co-operation of the 
governed with those in control. 

Self-assertion and the desire for activity domi- 
nate childhood. At first this self-assertion is 
individualistic. If children play together, each 
manages to a large extent his own game. Later, 
as we shall find, this individualism becomes 
merged in the group and the gang spirit arises. 
Instead of every boy's playing his own game they 
now follow a leader and personal glory gives way 
to the success of the team. These characteristics 
should be turned to the advantage of mental and 
moral development in the school. Children can 
be made to do anything if they are only con- 
vinced that responsibility rests upon them. An 
illustration will show how this works out. 

A nine-year-old boy living in one of the dirty 
alleys of Philadelphia was dividing his time be- 
tween attending school and playing truant, the 
latter occupation receiving rather more than its 



236 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

due share of attention. His face and hands were 
always dirty, and if his hair had ever been combed, 
the record of this fact was lost. Whenever he 
condescended to be present, he was engaged in 
asserting his individuahty by annoying his fellow- 
pupils and teacher.* One day the school was or- 
ganized into a self-governing municipaUty, and 
Tommy, to the dismay of his teacher, was elected 
a member of the council. It certainly did not 
promise well for the success of the plan if the 
children would put the worst boy of the school 
in control. The following day, however. Tommy 
came promptly, and the transformation was won- 
derful. Buttons had been sewed on to his clothes, 
his hands and face were clean and his hair combed. 
The next day he was again on time, and he was 
just as neat as on the previous day; and, stranger 
still, the change was permanent. He did not 
play truant. He improved in his studies, and in- 
stead of being at the foot of his class, the little 
fellow very quickly advanced to the head. 

Six weeks afterward the teacher, going through 
the room, stopped at his desk and said: "Tommy, 
I am delighted to see how nicely you are get- 
ting along. You have not been absent once; be- 
sides you are as neat as a little gentleman, and 
you are doing splendidly in your classes." The 
youngster looked up and replied: "You know 



FALLACIES IN MORAL TRAINING 237 

they expect so much from a member of the city 
council." ^ 

Children, we have found, react according to the 
manner of treatment which they receive. Sur- 
round them with rules and prohibitions and they 
will obey so long as the overseer is present. But 
let them find him off his guard and they will se- 
lect for their amusement the very things which 
have been forbidden. 

Now, the peculiarity about school is that it 
creates a situation against which children rebel 
because of the very characteristics which go with 
childhood. They do not object to work, as is 
seen in the occupations in which the)-' engage 
many times on holidays. Nothing could be 
harder than the tasks which children impose 
upon themselves. They will spend all of their 
leisure time for weeks cutting trees and trimming 
logs with which to build a cabin. Nor, again, 
do they object to mental work. Were proof of 
this needed it could be found in the Hterary clubs 
and debating societies for which many hours are 
given to vigorous study. Perhaps it is the man- 
ner in which the tasks are put upon them, with 
an implied assurance of retribution in case of 
failure and the fact that the teacher assumes the 
entire responsibility for the work, that dries up 

1 "The School City," pp. 8-9. 



238" YOUTH AND THE RACE 

the children's enthusiasm for activity. A success- 
ful teacher of history in Charlestown, Massachu- 
setts, discovered what so many others have no- 
ticed — that her pupils did only so much work as 
they were compelled to do — and so decided to try 
an experiment to test the heresy that children can 
manage the recitation better than the teacher can 
do it for them. The class was organized into a 
business meeting. The children elected a presi- 
dent and secretary, and each morning the his- 
tory lesson was the business of the day. As the 
teacher told the pupils that they were to con- 
duct the recitation they were in much perplex- 
ity as to what they should do with her, but finally 
it was decided to call her the executive officer. 
The president called on different members of the 
class to report on topics in the lesson. If a re- 
port was inadequate, some one rose to make cor- 
rections or additions. When none of them could 
state the facts correctly, the subject was laid over 
as unfinished business until the next meeting. In 
her description of the work the teacher says: 
"The roll-call and report [of the secretary on 
the review lesson] were sometimes finished in five 
minutes, the lesson of the day in thirty more, and 
we found ourselves with ten minutes to spare. 
There were various suggestions as to what we 
had better do with the extra time. One was that 



FALLACIES IN MORAL TRAINING 239 

they take longer lessons; and this led us into the 
habit of letting them assign their own lessons; 
and they always took longer ones than I had 
been in the habit of giving. 

"Another suggestion was that the scholars col- 
lect pictures and show them to the class during 
the spare minutes. One boy said he didn't have 
much luck finding pictures, but he would Hke to 
read things in other books and tell them to the 
class. A girl asked if she might draw some pict- 
ures from a book in the hbrary, and still another 
boy asked permission to go over to the art mu- 
seum with his camera to take photographs of the 
things there that were connected with our work. 
We did all these things and many more. One sug- 
gestion led to the richest development of all the 
work of the year. The classes formed themselves 
into Httle informal clubs, met at recess and after 
school, and decided what each would do to con- 
tribute something interesting to the lessons. 

"One boy who had tried several times without 
success to get a chance to talk asked me: 'Do 
you suppose I shall ever get a chance to tell what 
I've found about Vestal virgins?' I told him to 
keep on trying, and finally he found his chance. 
Another boy wanted to describe a Roman house. 
He felt the need of a large plan to show the class, 
and, as he himself could not draw, he asked one 



240 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

of the girls in the drawing club to help him. She 
made him a beautiful pen-and-ink sketch of the 
ground plan of a Roman villa. Still another boy, 
who was especially interested in Pompeii, had 
been to considerable trouble to get a certain col- 
lection of Pliny's letters from the central library. 
He had read one of the letters describing the 
eruption of Vesuvius to the class, and some time 
afterward he said to me: *If we have time to-day 
may I read another letter from Pliny?' 'Isn't 
that book overdue?' I asked. 'Yes,' he answered, 
*but there's another letter in it that the rest ought 
to hear.' He was willing to pay the fine so that 
they might hear it." ^ 

The spirit of the recitation changed as soon as 
the work was put in the hands of the children. 
The enthusiasm was contagious. But still there 
were several who lagged behind the others. Then, 
as the teacher has informed the writer in a letter, 
one of the boys said that he believed he could 
bring them up if he were made president. The 
others at once gave him the chance, and he suc- 
ceeded in nearly all the cases. 

An incident which occurred in the class indi- 
cated the moral effect of giving children oppor- 
tunity to control themselves. "The discipHne of 

•"Group-work in the High-School," by Lotta A. Clark, Elemen- 
tary School Teacher, vol. 7, p. 335. 



FALLACIES IN MORAL TRAINING 241 

these classes was the easiest I have ever had," 
continues the teacher, "and became almost en- 
tirely unnecessary as the year went on. On one 
memorable occasion a boy forgot himself and was 
severely reprimanded. The next day the secre- 
tary described the whole occurrence minutely in 
her report. It nearly took my breath away and 
met with a storm of protest from the class. We 
had the report carefully reread, and, on finding 
that every word of it was perfectly true and proper, 
the class accepted the report, and it was placed 
on file with the rest. There was no more unsat- 
isfactory conduct to report in that section." 

Now, the difference between these business- 
meeting recitations and those of the ordinary 
school was that in the former case the pupils 
felt that the work was their own. They were 
directing it and they were responsible for its suc- 
cess or failure. When children are carrying out 
plans which they have agreed upon, they have no 
patience with loafers. At such a time work and 
fair play are the basis of their ethics. The peda- 
gogical attitude puts the responsibility upon the 
teacher, and children, like the rest of us, are very 
wilHng to shift obhgations. This method fails to 
accomplish the best results because it puts the 
teacher and the children into different if not op- 
posing camps. It does not appeal to the boys' 
system of ethics. 



242 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

Activity is, in a large measure, the test of intelli- 
gence. Among the lower animals this activity is 
limited to movements adapted to self-preserva- 
tion and play. With the advent of man, however, 
action assumed a new meaning. It was no longer 
restricted to immediate ends. Plans of a wider 
reach were then formed and man became a con- 
structive thinker. We are unable to say whether 
the Pithecanthropus erectus was born a man be- 
cause his arboreal grandparents learned to do a 
little better thinking than their anthropoid cous- 
ins, or whether man is only a mutation freak of 
nature, but in any case his entire subsequent de- 
velopment is due to the necessity which nature 
forced upon him of using this newly acquired 
power. It was a slow process — extending through 
many hundred thousand years — by which prehis- 
toric man gained effective control of this strangely 
new power of constructive thought, and through- 
out the whole period his teacher was the experi- 
ence secured from his efforts to adjust himself to 
the situations which threatened his own destruc- 
tion and the extinction of the race. 

The development of children parallels in many 
respects the history of our savage ancestors. The 
sins for which Adam received the blame were the 
virtues of primitive man. Recognition of this has 
revolutionized moral training. The devil is no 
longer driven out of children with the whip, but 



FALLACIES IN MORAL TRAINING 243 

he is given opportunity for exercising his satanic 
ingenuity in ways that make for growth in social 
virtues. 

We have not yet learned, however, to utiHze 
the method of racial growth. From the earhest 
savage of the cave period to the present time, 
man has gained his experience by action, and ac- 
tion is just the thing that schools do not encour- 
age. To be sure manual training has become 
popular, and playgrounds are now receiving some 
attention, but, except for these, action as an ele- 
ment in education begins and ends with the kin- 
dergarten. Our present school method of requir- 
ing children to sit quietly while they study the 
lessons which they are to recite, is inherited from 
the Middle Ages, though one must, of course, 
admit that raising them from the floor to desk 
seats is one step upward. A new science of school 
hygiene has arisen, a large part of which is con- 
cerned with the problem of how seats should be 
constructed in order that children may be kept 
in them longest without injury. But the ques- 
tion as to whether they may not make better 
progress if given the same freedom in doing their 
work as they have when engaged in their own 
activities has hardly been discussed. 

The teacher's problem is evidently to create sit- 
uations which stimulate children to activity by 



244 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

appealing to the tribal instincts of the race. 
Their own associates are then the judges of their 
acts, and children never appeal their cases from 
the decision of this court. We have found this 
true in pupil-government. The reason for it, with 
the educational consequences, will be more fully 
discussed in the following chapter. 

Traditional pedagogy smiles at the idea of mak- 
ing children the arbiters of the school, but this is 
because of man's fondness for exercising his power. 
It is an exhibition in adults of the racial instinct 
to which we have referred in earlier discussions. 
But in maturity the excuse for its arrogant use, 
which may be cited for children, does not exist. 
Those who have tried the experiment of making 
children responsible for the work and actions of 
their fellows have observed great improvement in 
scholarship, and discipline has taken care of itself. 
Its value in moral training consists In the fact 
that, among children, the pubHc sentiment of 
their fellows is both exacting and efficient. They 
will combine against a command of the teacher, 
but they never long resist a mandate of their 
associates. An individual child may be perverse, 
but the pupil-body when in power will insist 
that he act with them for the good of the body 
politic of the school. This is moral training, and 
it frees the school from the artificial organization 



FALLACIES IN MORAL TRAINING 245 

which makes it so different from Hfe in the out- 
side world. When the group is made the basis of 
organization and action, children acquire habits 
of industry and ethical conduct because of the de- 
mands of school sentiment. And this calls out 
the best that there is in them. It is the basis of 
social conduct. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE SPIRIT OF THE GANG: AN EDUCA- 
TIONAL ASSET 

The gang instinct is almost as much a part of 
boy nature as is the desire to swim or play base- 
ball, Sheldon^ found 934 societies reported by 
1,139 boys, and 911 similar organizations by 
1,145 girls. From another miscellaneous collec- 
tion of 1,022 boys, 862 societies were reported by 
Forbush,^ and Puffer^ says that out of 146 boys 
in the Lyman Industrial School, 128 were in 
gangs. Frequently a boy belonged to several such 
societies. Finally, "it is safe to say that three out 
of four boys belong to a gang," according to Puffer, 
and Sheldon, as a result of his investigation, says: 
"American children left to themselves, organize." 

The time for the formation of gangs is from ten 
or eleven years of age to about the sixteenth 
year. Under certain conditions the period may 
be extended, but when that is the case it usually 
indicates arrested development. Gangs are the 
expression of primitive tendencies. An environ- 

^ American Journal of Psychology, vol. 9, p. 429. 
' Pedagogical Seminary, vol. 7, p. 313. 
* Pedagogical Seminary, vol. 12, p. 175. 
246 



THE SPIRIT OF THE GANG 247 

ment incapable of draining off these instincts into 
channels which make for social growth perpetu- 
ates the racial impulses of early man. Examples 
of this are the Mafia secret society of Sicily and 
the Camorra in Naples, the latter having recently 
become prominent because of the trial of some 
of its members. The history of criminology is 
replete with organizations that owe their exist- 
ence to the survival of primitive instincts.^ 

Probably it is because of the age at which 
gangs are normal that physical activity is the 
common bond of union. Sheldon found ill pred- 
atory societies, 406 athletic clubs, and 59 indus- 
trial organizations among the boys to whom we 
have referred above. According to Forbush, *' pred- 
atory and athletic societies number ']'] per cent. 
Add to these the industrial, and we have 85/^ 
per cent of the whole." Some form of physical 
activity and sociabiHty seems to have character- 
ized all of the gangs to which the Lyman (reform) 
school boys belonged. This is, of course, to be 
expected in the case of reform-school children, 
since philanthropic, literary, and artistic ideals, 
the stimuli for organization among some of the 
other groups, had not entered into their lives. 
The names of some of the gangs among the 

'Numerous examples may be found in Jacob A. Riis's "How the 
Other Half Live." 



248 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

inmates of the Lyman school are suggestive of 
the aims and Ufe of the lads. "The Eggmen" 
(because they robbed farmers), "The Wharf 
Rats" (because their meeting-place was a wharf), 
"Liners," and "Crooks" are among those men- 
tioned by Puffer. 

These kinds of gangs are the result of a deep- 
seated racial antipathy to the modern conditions 
of city and school which do not give boys a chance 
to live their life. The very purposes of the long 
period of immaturity are ignored in the condi- 
tions which are put upon children. Their bod- 
ily organization demands opportunity to try its 
powers that nervous paths may be opened for 
motor discharge. "There is plain evidence in 
the reports of these boys," says Puffer in a re- 
cent study^ of the gang, "that they were tired of 
the Inactivity, restraint, and monotony of the 
school and longed for the greater excitement and 
adventure outside. The boys who cannot run 
away from home get their adventures at second 
hand by way of the theatre." 

"The theatre," Jane Addams tells us, "has a 
strange power to forecast life for the youth. Each 
boy comes from our ancestral past not 'In entire 
forgetfulness,' and quite as he unconsciously uses 
ancient war-cries in his street play, so he longs to 

* McClure's Magazi7ie, October, 191 1, p. 683. 



THE SPIRIT OF THE GANG 249 

reproduce and to see set before him the valors 
and vengeances of a society embodying a much 
more primitive state of morahty than that in 
which he finds himself." ^ 

Instances showing the longing for real life — to 
see something "doing" and to have a share in 
it — as a motive for the genesis of gangs would 
easily fill a volume. A typical case will serve as 
an illustration. Other examples of somewhat dif- 
ferent import were cited in the chapter on "The 
Spirit of Adventure." The acts In which gangs 
engage always have a social content. A group 
may be large or small, but if the boys have a 
common purpose which binds them together for 
exploits and mutual protection they constitute a 
gang. In the case of small boys, however, the 
bond of union often breaks when they are caught. 

The following instance was taken from a recent 
issue of a newspaper.- Names and unessential 
facts are omitted. 

Three very small and very tearful youngsters, whose fright 
ill accorded with the warlike shields, made from the metal 
tops of ash-cans, and bags of stones, to be used as weapons, 
which hung from their arms and shoulders, were led into the 
Alexander Avenue Station, in the Bronx, last night by four 
big policemen. The boys tried hard to appear at ease, but 
their misfortune overwhelmed them, for of all the members 
of the 149th Street gang and their hereditary rivals, the 

* "The Spirit of Youth." by Jane Addams, pp. 77-78. 
^ New York Times, August 28, 191 1. 



250 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

Saint Ann Avenue gang, they alone had fallen prisoners to 
the police. 

They had been taken when the policemen swept down 
on the battling gangs a few minutes before in Saint Mary's 
Park. There the battle of stones had waged fiercely for 
more than half an hour, the 149th Streeters again and again 
braving the fire of the Saint Ann Avenue gang as they 
stormed the hill in the park, almost opposite Beekman Ave- 
nue, on which their rivals had taken a stand. 

Gang fights have been frequent in the neighborhood for 
several weeks. There has been no ill-feeling in the matter. 
The question has been a purely ethical one of superiority, 
and since previous encounters had failed to settle this to the 
satisfaction of all concerned, yesterday was selected by the 
opposing leaders for a battle to a finish. Plans were formed 
days ahead, and as a result housekeepers in the vicinity of 
Saint Mary's Park, which is bounded by Saint Ann and Rob- 
bins Avenues and 143d and 149th Streets, have missed the 
covers of their ash-cans. From these the rival armies man- 
ufactured shields, and for weapons they chose plain stones, 
which could be picked up in the streets or vacant lots. The 
time was set for shortly before five o'clock, and an hour 
before this the warriors began to assemble. 

By vantage of a majority among the early comers, the 
Saint Ann Avenue gang seized the hill and prepared to de- 
fend it against the assault of the 149th Streeters. Had they 
had their choice the latter would have taken the hill, but 
with the arrival of their leader they organized quickly for a 
combined assault on the citadel. On the rising ground were 
some forty-odd boys, and as many more, none more than 
fourteen and some less than ten years old, gathered at the 
foot. 

It was raining a light drizzle, and the park was deserted. 
Not a policeman was in sight. At a signal the assault was 
started, and under cover of a flurry of stones the raiders 
dashed for the hill. Then stones began to fly thick and fast. 
They bounded from the ash-cover shields and occasionally 
from the bodies of the combatants, but in the heat of the 
fray the warriors failed to notice that a goodly number also 



THE SPIRIT OF THE GANG 251 

whizzed into the street, where presently there began to 
sound the crash of broken windows and the tinkle of falling 
glass. 

A resident of the neighborhood saw a rock come through 
one of his windows and he narrowly missed half a dozen 
more when he looked out of the door to see what was the 
matter. It angered him and he telephoned to the police. 
It was then the city guards led a sortie against the rival 
armies. For an instant besieged and besiegers thought of 
making common cause against the police, but some one 
quailed and presently the armies were flying for their vari- 
ous homes at top speed. 

According to the police, a dozen windows had been smashed 
in Saint Ann Avenue and half a dozen more in Beekman 
Avenue. Therefore they charged their prisoners with juve- 
nile delinquency, and locked them up. 

Before supper-time, however, hostages in the shape of deeds 
for property had been given, and the warriors were led home 
by their respective parents. 

An instinct that has such a grip on boys as is 
indicated by the number of their organizations, 
and which exercises a control that brings all chil- 
dren under its sway, even continuing its power 
into early manhood when conditions are unsuit- 
able for outgrowing it, seems to offer more edu- 
cational possibilities than have been used. 

Sociability and activity are the racial stimu- 
lants behind boys' societies. The origin of both 
impulses must be sought in the lower animals. 
The purposes of sociability have remained much 
the same through the ages, but with the appear- 
ance of man, activity underwent an important 
change. 



252 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

The animals contemporaneous with our first 
ancestors had found their place in the world of 
life. Nature had attended to that, and the fact 
of their survival was its proof. Man, however, 
was a novelty that lacked many elements of self- 
protection possessed by his lower kin. He must 
have had to establish his right to exist against 
almost overwhelming obstacles. Probably it was 
his superior intellect that enabled him to survive 
while he was learning to adapt himself to condi- 
tions to which, in other respects, he could hardly 
have been so well fitted as those from whom he 
sprung. The ceaseless dangers that surrounded 
him could have left no time for useless action. 
He had to work and, to the extent of his mental 
power, to plan for self-protection. 

It was because of this early need for effective 
action that man became a constructive creature. 
He is averse to effort which he thinks useless, but 
is keenly alert to do that which is definite and 
concrete. 

This instinct for construction or "workman- 
ship" is evidently the lever by which children may 
be Hfted out of their predatory exploits of sav- 
agery to the activities of modern life. One of the 
first questions, then, which arises in this process 
of shifting ideals is the method of securing the 
attention for things that promote modern culture. 



THE SPIRIT OF THE GANG 253 

Education has been suffering lately from a sort 
of dual personality. Its psychology and practice 
move along in more or less parallel lines without 
the one greatly interfering with the other. Evi- 
dence that interest does not precede but always 
follows attention to an idea or group of ideas does 
not deter the enthusiastic teacher from giving this 
interest an external source instead of ascribing it 
to the mind. 

Just here is where racial instincts with all their 
powerful claim to "involuntary" attention enter 
directly into the problem. If, as is generally ad- 
mitted, "voluntary" attention differs from "in- 
voluntary" in the number and sort of ideas which 
are applicants for the limited space in the focus 
of consciousness, the very practical question arises 
concerning the part the educator may play in this 
contest. It looks as though he enters the com- 
petition with racial instincts, so heavily handi- 
capped as hardly to be able to show his wares. 

The feelings have been thought to be the stra- 
tegic base of operations from which a successful 
flanking movement could be started. The innu- 
merable and disorderly mental processes of young- 
sters could then, it was beHeved, be driven into a 
narrower line of march, and finally, as they be- 
came more restricted, be compelled, in sheer self- 
defence, to give heed to the interesting ideas 



254 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

which the skilful teachers always put at the head 
of their attacking column. 

Unfortunately, however, for this theory, a Httle 
observation shows how unreliable are the feeUngs 
and emotions when we have marshalled our edu- 
cational forces for the attack. A college student 
recently told the writer that, after an eloquent 
exposition by his professor of English history of 
the period of George III, it was mentioned, as an 
Instance of that monarch's abstemiousness, that 
he always had boiled mutton and turnips for din- 
ner. Now, if there are any articles of diet which 
this student abhors, it is boiled mutton and tur- 
nips. Consequently, all the deserving ideas re- 
lated to the period of George III were forced to 
yield, for the time, to the domination of turnips 
and mutton, and when, the following year, George 
III was reached in American history, all other 
ideas were driven from the consciousness of this 
young man while he breathlessly waited again for 
mutton and turnips. Evidently the feeHngs are 
an unsafe educational guide, if hateful objects 
and ideas may be as attractive as those which are 
pleasant. 

Again, rewards and penalties have seemed to 
some to be the effective means of winning the at- 
tention. The first of these fails on account of the 
uncertainty of pupils regarding the sort of knowl- 



THE SPIRIT OF THE GANG 255 

edge which will secure the reward, and the sec- 
ond is unproductive because the teacher and the 
implied punishment are too prominent in the 
consciousness of the youthful learner for efficient 
concentration. Further, both of these incentives 
divide the attention. The prerequisite of a pro- 
ductive state of consciousness is that all diverting 
ideas and objects, including the teacher himself, 
pass out of consciousness and leave the field free 
for the competitive interaction of the mental proc- 
esses created by the work in hand. Ideas may 
be forced upon children while the native impulses 
are restrained by penalties, much as one may be 
compelled to eat what does not suit one's taste, but 
the mind refuses to react, just as gastric juice is 
stingy of its flow when food is unattractive. 

We have seen that the growing points in elemen- 
tary and secondary education are the various types 
of schools for delinquents. The reason for this, 
as has been said, is that the boys in these schools 
are so much the primitive man that the tradi- 
tional plan of education breaks down completely 
when appHed to them. On this account, the 
experimental method, which until recently was 
regarded as so heretical as to justify the excommu- 
nication of its advocates from communion with 
righteous pedagogues, was forced upon those in 
charge. The result is that delinquents have the 



256 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

best schools. And they secured them by refus- 
ing to submit to the traditional method. 

Not the least curious thing about these disci- 
pUnary schools is that they require less discipHne 
than the ordinary school. Of course, a dose of 
discipHnary medicine is sometimes necessary at 
the beginning. It has much the same value as 
that which David Harum attributed to fleas on a 
dog. Too sudden a break with one's past is likely 
to prove disastrous. 

It should be remembered that discipHnary 
schools and reformative institutions deal with 
youngsters who cannot be controlled in the or- 
dinary school. To be able, under these circum- 
stances, to produce in the majority of boys a con- 
dition of consciousness attentive to study and to 
develop a mental attitude responsive to social in- 
centives is certainly remarkable. 

Instances of unusual influence over pupils have 
been noticed at times, but such successes are gen- 
erally explained by the vague term, personality. 
The method of these teachers, however, is strik- 
ingly similar. They secure attention to their 
ideas by identifying them with the racial in- 
stincts characteristic of boys. 

Attention is an attitude of mind that is condi- 
tioned by the mental content. In the more ma- 
ture, many derived interests cluster around de- 



THE SPIRIT OF THE GANG 257 

sire for success, but in children these controlling 
elements only occasionally exist. The problem of 
the schools, therefore, is to capture a purposeless, 
wayward attention often enough, and to hold it 
long enough, to impress the mind with the signifi- 
cance of a few derived interests which may serve 
as a new base of operations from which to push 
on to further development. One's attitude to- 
ward knowledge depends upon the mental con- 
tent. The ideas and activities of children are the 
stuff out of which their thoughts are made. In 
early life this material is social, and it is social 
because it is racial. 

Johnson says^ that the children in his vacation 
school preferred "to submit to a flogging as evi- 
dence that they sincerely intended to resist temp- 
tation" to disobey, "rather than to stay away 
from school." "Nearly every species of butter- 
fly to be found in Andover [Mass.] during the 
season was captured" by his children. Many 
kinds of caterpillars were watched as they devel- 
oped into chrysahdes in the cages, and nearly all 
the diff'erent kinds of fishes to be found in the 
streams and ponds were caught and studied. 
Much of this work was done outside of school 
hours. Think what it would mean if enthusiasm 
like this could be transferred to every branch of 
student pursuit! 

^Pedagogical Seminary, vol. 6, p. 516. 



258 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

Boys organize because it is their nature to herd 
together. Self-protection was probably the in- 
centive to gregariousness in the lower animals, 
and with the appearance of man this same im- 
pulse to unite in bands gained increased strength 
from his helplessness against the fierce animals 
by which he was surrounded. Like all primitive 
tendencies, this gregarious instinct is natural to 
children at a certain age, but indicates arrested 
development when it continues dominant into 
early manhood. This is the case with those young 
men of twenty years and upward whose shooting 
carnivals find a conspicuous place in the head- 
lines of daily papers. The interesting fact about 
these abnormal cases is that along with the prim- 
itive brutaUty which makes such men a menace 
to society, they also retain some of the virtues 
which characterize the gang at the normal age. 
They are faithful to the moral code of the gang 
even to the extent of protecting those who have 
grievously injured them. They accept defeat 
calmly and die unavenged rather than violate 
the ethics of the gang by betraying the one who 
committed the crime. ** There is no good telling 
you anything; I don't want to help the cops," ^ 
said a dying man of twenty-eight to a friend who 
asked who shot him. 

' Saint Louis Globe-Democrat, and Post-Dispatch, December 26, 
1911. 



THE SPIRIT OF THE GANG 259 

It is the ready-made organization and its code 
of ethics of which we have been speaking that 
gives the gang its educational importance. Fail- 
ure to recognize these social relations of boys and 
to utilize them in the educative process places 
teachers in direct antagonism to the strongest 
forces of youth. The school with the "open 
shop" is a failure. Teachers must recognize the 
children's union. 

The modern school-master has his own way of 
doing things. Anything that smacks of compro- 
mise with his pupils is abhorrent to his nature. 
Their lessons are to be learned because he assigns 
them, and order is to be maintained at his behest. 
Yet, after all, habits of study and behavior are 
not best acquired under constraint. Self-control 
— the condition to which training should lead — 
depends upon ideas and the more or less per- 
fected thought systems into which they are or- 
ganized, and, in children, this is a matter of 
growth through experiences that establish habits 
of action. Compulsion should come from cir- 
cumstances which impel to right conduct rather 
than originate in authority that gains its power 
from the fear which it produces. But control 
through authority and fear is in the line of least 
resistance because it is the method of the lower 
animals and of primitive man. Consequently it 



260 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

does not require the expenditure of energy that 
thinking exacts. The responsibiHty for this in- 
ertia in school matters may often be traced back 
to the board of education and even to the parents. 
"If we try to do anything out of the usual the 
parents complain and a member of the board 
comes to the school and orders it stopped," said 
a superintendent in a small town. "We are not 
even allowed to show it to him or to explain the ad- 
vantages." One is reminded of Mark Twain's ob- 
servation: "In the first place God made idiots. This 
was for practice. Then he made school boards." ^ 

We said a moment ago that the significance of 
the gang Hes in its system of ethics and in the 
fact that it has an organization ready for any use. 
The code of morals of the youngsters grows out 
of their social relations. Boys of the gang age 
have no respect for a tale-bearer, or for a "sissy," 
and they punish with the utmost severity any 
associate who is not square. 

A boy who had so recently joined a self-govern- 
ing newsboys' association that he was unfamiliar 
with the way in which they did business was 
handed twenty-five cents for a morning paper. 
"He had no change, but excused himself to 'step 
across the way to get it.' Instead of going into 
the store the boy started on a run around the 

' "Following the Equator," p. 597. 



THE SPIRIT OF THE GANG 261 

building and was soon lost from sight. 'I might 
have expected it,' remarked the gentleman to a 
friend. This was overheard by two newsboys. 
One said: 'Oh, no, mister, your money is not lost. 
We'll have it for you in ten minutes. Don't you 
be uneasy. You stand right where you are for a 
few minutes.' 

"Away ran the boys, one going to the right, 
the other to the left, and a third, who took to 
the alley, joined them. In less than ten minutes 
the boy was brought to bay and appeared before 
the gentleman. An apology was given and the 
money returned. 

"'Don't you say anything to him,' said one 
of the newsboys; 'we won't do a thing to him, 
oh, no.' The man soon forgot the incident, and 
will never know the severe punishment that boy 
had to bear. They took him into the alley, 
bumped his head against the wall of the building, 
rolled him in the mud, took his badge from him, 
and with a parting word of advice left him. The 
badge was turned over to the president [of the 
association] with instructions to return it to the 
boy at the expiration of fifteen days. What for.'' 
The president did not know and only learned the 
particulars a month later from one of the officers. 
The boy called for his badge, and it was given 
to him without a word, 



262 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

"The books show that this same boy, after 
leaving the junior grade in school, procured a good 
position and the proprietor particularly called at- 
tention to him for a peculiar trait. 'The boy ap- 
plied for work — office work. We gave him a job. 
He asked particularly how many hours he must 
work, when he was to begin and when to stop. 
This given, we were surprised to see that he was 
at the office every morning two hours before his 
time and pegging away at a typewriter. His 
wages have been increased three times. He'll be 
one of the firm before we're through with him. 

" The only recommendation he had was that he 
was a member of the Boyville Newsboys' Asso- 
ciation — and this we took. In fact it proved a 
better recommendation than that offered by his 
mother, who called to get a part of his wages to 
purchase whiskey.'" ^ 

And yet teachers insist that they cannot be 
expected to overcome bad home influences ! These 
newsboys did not have even such contact with 
this lad as the schools have with their pupils, 
but they changed him into a man. Teachers have 
not made a beginning in the use of social forces for 
education. Boys when organized for self-govern- 
ment instinctively train one another better than 
teachers, with all their learning, train them. But 

• "Boyville," by John E. Gunckel, pp. 99-101. 



THE SPIRIT OF THE GANG 263 

what are some of the ideals which are put before 
them? 

Puffer/ in his recent study of the gang, found 
that the leaders excel the others in truthfulness, 
perseverance, generosity, bravery, reason, shrewd- 
ness, and independence. These are pretty good 
qualities for boys to emulate. Shrewdness is the 
only one about which there can be any question, 
but shrewdness when tempered with truthfulness 
and generosity is, after all, not so bad. Boys 
certainly might be under worse training, espe- 
cially when we find that mental brightness and 
attention to the thing in hand are joined with the 
other qualities which boys admire in their leaders. 
If these are among the virtues of the gang, and 
we must not forget that Puffer investigated a 
crowd of selected "bad boys," i. e.^ reform-school 
children, the question is how to avail ourselves of 
these ideals in the development of children. This 
is where the ready-made organization comes in. 
Let us see how it may be used. 

A teacher of wide experience was placed in 
charge of a school which had always borne a bad 
name. He had a reputation as a disciplinarian, 
and that was the reason for his selection. He 
found no difficulty in keeping order in the rooms 
when he was about. His size and eye were enough 

'^McClure's Magazine, October, 191 1. 



264 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

for that, but the complaints of the neighbors did 
not cease. Garbage pails and ash-cans contin- 
ued to be overturned, and nothing which the boys 
could lay their hands on was safe. The teacher 
discovered also that, like his predecessors, he 
could not rely on anything the boys told him. 
Notes of excuse were forged, and it was necessary 
to keep the doors of the building locked until his 
arrival. The principal set apart a period for 
moral instruction, but the boys winked at one 
another while he was talking and during recess 
laughed at what he had said. It was too humili- 
ating for one of his experience and reputation, so 
he resigned. 

His successor had no recommendations except 
the successful management of a boys' club in a 
neighboring town. His selection was due to the 
fact that no one of experience was available. The 
school had already wrecked too many reputations. 

It is impossible to analyze the reasons for the 
success of a good teacher. Personality is too com- 
plex. But before the boys knew just what had 
happened the new teacher was a member of their 
gang. 

It turned out that the boys had no evening 
loafing place except the street, so the school was 
opened for them. There was no attempt to make 
the evening intellectual. Games of various sorts 



THE SPIRIT OF THE GANG 265 

were played. Whatever the boys called for was 
in order. The leader of the group was soon known. 
This came out in the natural course of events. 
And, after that, he was frequently called into con- 
sultation by the principal. Strange ideas came to 
this leader through these conferences. They were 
so different from those to which his followers had 
been accustomed! No one knew where he ob- 
tained them. He himself did not know. He 
thought they were his own, and so they were. 
But then, of course, the thoughts of all of us grow 
out of the situations in which we are placed or 
are suggested by conversations. It does not mat- 
ter how the ideas came to him. The important 
thing is that he felt them as his own and that they 
were carried out with all of the enthusiasm which 
boys put into their impulses. 

Everything came out in time. For several years 
it had been a tradition in the gang to "beat" the 
teacher. There was nothing personal in it. Sev- 
eral of their teachers, the boys admitted, were 
"all right." It was the class to which they be- 
longed that was hated. All of the depredations 
in the neighborhood and the petty thievery had 
been directed against the teachers as the visible 
personification of the school. The boys could 
strike with less danger to themselves in that way, 
and it was great fun, they said, to hear the prin- 



266 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

cipal "talk morals." Like other boys they had 
an excess of energy, and no one had known how 
to drain it off through useful channels. Their 
teachers just tried to dam it up. 

The educational problem, as we have said, is to 
secure the attention. Now, we have seen that if 
the group consciousness prevails, as it does when 
boys are ruled by the spirit of the gang, the at- 
tention remains fixed upon what they are plan- 
ning to do. Boys will work persistently for weeks, 
and even months, trying to work out the details 
of what they have set before themselves. If this 
same concentration could be fixed upon the work 
of the school, pedagogical troubles would largely 
disappear. Why is it so difficult to produce this 
educational attitude of mind.^* What is the dif- 
ference between the two sorts of occupations ^ 

Educators seek to secure attention for certain 
ideas which make for growth, and the difficulty 
is that these ideas, intended as they are to pre- 
pare children for the future rather than the pres- 
ent, are likely to represent types of experience 
beyond the children's stage of development. One 
cannot avoid a certain sympathy with an eleven- 
year-old girl who, according to her teacher, re- 
fused to try to find how many times a bucket 
must be filled to empty a circular well, the height 
and bottom radius of which were given, together 



THE SPIRIT OF THE GANG 267 

with the height and radii of the bucket, on the 
ground that no one but a fool would try to empty 
a well in that way. To give attention to ideas 
whose value is a future asset requires rejection of 
those of present significance, and the mind re- 
fuses to make this sacrifice unless convinced of 
a more deserving claim. This is the reason for 
our unwillingness to listen to a friend when we 
are hurrying to a train. 

Children sacrifice the present for the future 
less wilHngly than adults because the events of 
the moment are full of meaning to them and the 
future has little significance. Progress in civili- 
zation has been conditioned by the substitution 
of future values for present gratification, and it is 
unreasonable to expect children who live in the 
same freedom from care as savages to give anx- 
ious thought for the morrow. It would seem, then, 
that the ideas for which teachers seek to gain the 
attention should be expressed in terms of present 
values to the child. They must in some way be 
identified with the things he wishes to do. They 
must have present worth. 

To go a step further, attention results from the 
mind's acquiescence in the focal presence of a par- 
ticular idea or group of ideas. This is true 
whether the attention be of the so-called volun- 
tary or involuntary variety, since the only differ- 



268 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

ence between the two lies in the complexity of the 
former. In "voluntary" attention more than 
one attraction is offered, and, each presenting in- 
ducements, the mind receives the one with more 
or less consciousness of what it has lost in giving 
up the other. This consciousness of deprivation, 
together with certain muscular sensations, prob- 
ably makes up the feeUng of effort which has 
caused this form of attention to be popularly 
thought active. Attention means an arrangement 
of the content of consciousness which gives clear- 
ness to one idea or group of ideas and produces 
comparative though not equal obscurity of the 
others. Change of attention requires a redistribu- 
tion of the content, and this is accompanied by a 
rearrangement of clearness. The change may be 
partial or complete, depending upon the operating 
causes and upon the condition of the mind. 

It is the radical rearrangement of the content 
of consciousness demanded by modern school 
methods to which children organically object. And 
the better the stuff they have in them the more 
vigorous is their resistance. Teachers insist that 
their pupils reorganize their minds at once. The 
thoughts which constitute childhood must be laid 
aside. The social relations that exist among them 
because they are living a primitive life are to be 
forgotten, and, in place of both, adult conceptions 



THE SPIRIT OF THE GANG 269 

are to be substituted. This complete destruction 
of their childish ideas is what children resist. 
They refuse to attend to the school-work because 
the act of attending means the annihilation of 
thoughts and things which seem to them of 
supreme importance. The place for the empha- 
sis of their thoughts varies with their age, and a 
knowledge of these changes constitutes an impor- 
tant branch of child study. 

But the school and social ideals may become 
the things to which children give attention when 
these duties, to use the phrase of adults, grow 
out of their own thoughts and social relations. 
Under these conditions there is no mental break. 
The pupils are not told either directly or by im- 
plication that their way of looking at things is 
altogether wrong. Their thoughts are directed 
into other channels which offer views quite as 
consistent with their racial impulses as did the 
earlier course. In other words, their childish ways 
of acting are utilized for new purposes. An illus- 
tration will make the method clearer. 

It was the season for pea-shooters and the boys 
were making the most of it. No one was safe 
when passing the school. The boys stood in a 
crowd so as to hide the marksmen and a shout of 
exultation, followed by the disappearance of the 
gang, signalled a successful shot at a passer-by. 



270 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

The principal was in despair. He talked to the 
boys individually and in groups, and punished 
without fear or favor any who were caught. But 
he made no headway. Yet he was not unpopular. 
Indeed, the boys pronounced him the best of all 
their teachers. And they agreed that he was 
strictly fair. But the pea-shooting continued, and 
the residents grew more angry. 

A friend was visiting the principal. His intro- 
duction to the school was a pea in the corner of 
his eye. It was not a large pea, but it was aimed 
on the efficiency plan and it did its work. The 
stranger made some remarks which seemed ap- 
propriate to the occasion and went into the build- 
ing to soothe his eye and his feelings. While he 
was bathing the former an idea came to him. 
The boys, he said to himself, were shooting peas 
for want of something better to do. And they 
were shooting at people because they were the 
most available and interesting targets. There 
was the element of contest, of warfare, in it. 
Why not substitute another form of the same 
racial activity? The plan was sufficiently harm- 
less to be unobjectionable to the principal even 
though no authority could be found for it in the 
history of education. 

The visitor made a short speech to the pupils 
at close of school. No reference was made to the 



THE SPIRIT OF THE GANG 271 

annoying pea-shooting. He merely invited the 
boys to meet him on the playground the next 
morning, which was Saturday, and compete in 
archery. The principal stopped one of the boys 
as he was passing out and introduced him to the 
stranger. This was the leader of the rougher 
group in the school. Of course this part of the 
programme had been arranged beforehand, at the 
suggestion of the visitor, because the principal 
did not believe that the boys would accept the 
invitation. The leader was asked if he would 
help make a target. Naturally he was pleased 
at the honor. What boy would not be? Putting 
up the target did not take long, but two hours 
were spent in finishing a bow and a couple of 
arrows. Meanwhile the two had become fast 
friends, and when the boy was asked on leaving 
whether he thought the others would come, he 
replied: "Leave that to me." 

The next day at the appointed time the boys 
came in groups as though for mutual support in 
the rather novel experience. They stood around 
with their hands in their pockets in much the 
same embarrassment as is noticed at a children's 
party. But their leader ordered them around 
like galley slaves, and so they soon began to feel 
quite natural. At the close of the morning's 
sport, which all enjoyed immensely, some one 



272 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

proposed that they organize a bow and arrow 
club. No one knew just where the idea started. 
The leader made the suggestion and, with the obe- 
dience which boys always show on the playground, 
they agreed that it would be splendid. 

The manual-training department was kept busy 
for the following week making bows and arrows. 
The children went at it very differently from the 
way in which they had worked at the things as- 
signed by their teachers and which had no special 
meaning for them. 

What happened to the pea-shooters? They 
were given to the small boys. But these little 
fellows, again, did not find them so interesting 
as before. They also wanted to shoot arrows at 
targets. 

Judge Lindsey has shown how the actions of 
boys may be radically altered in various lines 
without doing violence to their own social or 
gang conceptions of duty. 

"In a certain suburb of Denver," he relates, 
"where the smelters are located and there are a 
great many cheap saloons selling bad liquor and 
tobacco to children, two celebrated gangs brought 
to the juvenile court for dangerous forms of row- 
dyism and lawlessness not only completely sup- 
pressed every serious objectionable feature among 
themselves, but also went after the men who were 



THE SPIRIT OF THE GANG 273 

selling liquor and tobacco to boys. They prose- 
cuted and sent several to jail, and did more to 
stop the use of tobacco and Hquor among boys in 
that neighborhood than the police department or 
civil authorities had done in the history of the 
town." ^ The members of the same gangs also 
prosecuted men for selling firearms to children, 
for purchasing stolen property, and for circulating 
obscene literature. Yet these were the lads who 
had been making the trouble in that neighbor- 
hood, who had been stealing the property which 
the junk-dealers bought, and who were among 
the customers for the firearms and immoral litera- 
ture. 

If a gang can be made to suppress its own 
lawlessness and become the protectors of those 
upon whom it has been preying, what limit is 
there to the utilization of its enthusiasm and its 
spirit? This suppression of lawlessness, however, 
was not accomplished by violating the ethics of 
the gang, but rather by giving to these impulses 
a more universal social outlet. And this, after 
all, is what constitutes moral training. The gang 
is a close social corporation. The action of its 
members toward one another is often exemplary. 
Kindness, truthfulness, and helpfulness would 

* "The Problem of the Children," "Report of the Juvenile Court 
of Denver, 1904," pp. 107-108. 



274 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

leave little to be desired, if these virtues were not 
so narrowly restricted in their application. But 
outsiders are not included among the beneficiaries. 
Now, it is the extension of the point of view of 
the gang — the enlargement of its membership to 
include the greater social group which has been 
shut out and classed among its enemies — that is 
the first task of those engaged in training boys. 
When this is accomplished a large proportion of 
the school troubles disappear because they have 
originated in the traditional opposition of the 
school-master to the impulses which have all the 
sanction of racial passion. 

But there is still another way in which Judge 
Lindsey has socialized the wayward lads who 
have come before his court, without destroying 
the ethical concepts of childhood. Tale-bearing 
we have found to be abhorrent to boys. To ask 
those who are caught to reveal the names of their 
associates in the crimes and misdemeanors would 
be destructive of their social growth, because dip- 
lomatic relations between teachers and pupils 
would at once be broken off. But "in the 'snitch- 
ing bee' conducted in my chambers around my 
table, after the boys became friendly," says Judge 
Lindsey, "they did not tell the names of the boys 
they knew to be doing the same thing. They 
went back to the school and within the next day 



THE SPIRIT OF THE GANG 275 

or so returned to my chambers with sixteen more. 
These sixteen boys, from a very respectable school 
in a respectable neighborhood, brought to me some 
twenty or thirty dollars' worth of stolen trinkets, 
principally agate marbles, leather purses and bags, 
which they use for carrying their marbles. They 
voluntarily joined the delinquent list of proba- 
tioners." 

"Another most interesting case of this char- 
acter was one in which the party caught num- 
bered four, and these four rounded up forty-four 
others." ^ In still another case six or seven were 
caught and these brought in fifty-two others. "It 
has been about two years since these happenings, 
and in none of the cases so far has there been 
either a complaint against any of the boys in- 
volved or against any other boys in the same 
neighborhood because of a repetition of the of- 
fence." 

All of this means the enlargement of the social 
self. The gang, in its primitive state, is a re- 
stricted group. Its limited membership makes it 
decidedly individuahstic in its ethical intent, while 
the opposition which its members feel toward other 
groups, and particularly toward society in the 
large, gives it an anti-social trend. The school is 
one of the opposing, if not hostile, organizations. 

^ Judge Lindsey, op. cit., pp. 118-119. 



276 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

The purposes of the school are therefore not its 
purposes, and whatever can be done to defeat the 
teacher is ethically justifiable. 

We have shown by illustrations how this atti- 
tude of hostility may be changed to one of friend- 
liness by giving a new turn to the primitive ideas 
and ideals of the children. 

With this change in attitude toward the school 
organization comes an alteration in the attentive 
process. The things to which the teachers ask 
attention no longer represent the demands of 
"the opposition." The social world of the gang 
has been enlarged, and this extension of its world 
of fellowship calls for recognition by its members 
of the claims of the larger group. The content of 
the minds of the boys has been changed, but not 
by suppressing their native impulses. What they 
have believed is still true, but it has received a 
larger, more universal meaning. Their racial in- 
stincts are still allowed to run their course; only 
the channel has been deepened and directed with 
intelligence, instead of shifting aimlessly with the 
promptings of inherited savage impulses. 

Sometimes, indeed, these inherited instincts are 
best directed by first giving them freedom under 
limited control. In this way the boy gradually 
becomes accustomed to restraint though he would 
break the rope were he pulled up short. This 



THE SPIRIT OF THE GANG 277 

seems to have been the case with an habitual run- 
away who came under Judge Lindsey after eighteen 
months in a reform school had failed to cure him 
of his Wanderlust. 

"I succeeded in getting him to come and tell 
me when he was going to run away," says Judge 
Lindsey.^ "He came one day as though possessed 
with a fever and said he must 'take a ride.' I 
dehberately gave him permission to 'bum his way' 
to Colorado Springs on condition that he would 
go no farther and would come back within a week. 
I knew that he was fully capable of going to Cal- 
ifornia or the Gulf of Mexico, whither he had 
often 'taken a ride.' Of course I took chances, 
but I took an equally desperate chance if I re- 
turned him to the reform school, which had failed 
to cure the malady. The boy was as good as his 
word, and after two experiences of this kind, now 
two years ago, he has ceased to be a 'bum' and is 
in every way promising." 

This was not an extreme case. Extreme and 
radical are words applied to actions and behefs 
which do not fit into our system of ideas. The 
boy was living his racial life, just like other virile 
children. But with him the primitive centred in 
the desire to roam. If he could have been taken 
out into the woods, his craving to wander might 

1 Op. cit., pp. 98-99. 



278 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

have been satisfied; but shutting him up only in- 
tensified the longing. Much of the excitement of 
escapades comes from the restraint that boys 
meet. Resistance always generates opposition. 
A child's wants are suggested by the situation in 
which he is placed. Let him feel that he can do 
as he wishes and he is very likely to seek what 
you desire. He is, at least, in a receptive, adap- 
tive attitude. But under close restraint he is res- 
tive and seizes every chance to break away. 

The gang offers the best opportunity to con- 
trol boys because the self of each member is 
merged in the larger self of the group. For this 
reason its social hfe is the entrance to the still 
larger, more universal social relationships of the 
work-a-day world. Besides, action is unified so 
that it is not necessary to convince individuals 
and, in addition, suggestions are contagious in a 
crowd. 

Like adults, boys have various selves, and they 
always use the one that fits the occasion. Ex- 
perience has made them skilful in feats of rapid 
mental contortion. The same boy Is obstinate in 
school, a bully with the younger set and meek 
among the members of his gang. He selects the 
actions which he has found useful. When they 
fail to be serviceable he is quick to change. 

At the grammar and high school age, boys 



THE -SPIRIT OF THE GANG 279 

are individualistic and anarchistic toward their 
teachers, but socialistic in their own group. This 
contradictory personahty is due to the fact that 
they are just emerging from the individualism of 
early childhood. The gang is a stern school of 
altruism. The reason for this is the diversity of 
interests. The group offers a variety of ideas, and 
the one selected is less individually selfish in pro- 
portion as it partakes of the spirit of the group. 
Children are intolerant of personal self-seekers, 
and the group sentiment dominates partly be- 
cause of its larger, more universal worth. It 
meets the needs of individuals through its adap- 
tiveness to the wants of the entire group. What 
the group decides is for its good the individual 
accepts. In this way the group sentiment directs 
and rules the attention of those who contribute to 
its spirit. The members must work together and 
this forces concessions. IndividuaHsm crops out 
at times, and a boy may break away, but he in- 
variably returns and begs to be taken back at 
any cost to his independence. Except in rare in- 
stances, boys cannot endure isolation. 

There are several reasons why boys are most 
accessible through the gang. We have already 
indicated that the members are swayed at the 
moment by a single impulse. What that impulse 
shall be depends upon the prevailing suggestion. 



280 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

Gangs possess the strength and weakness of a 
psychological crowd. They are more Hkely to be 
destructive on account of inherited savage instincts 
and because reason seldom obtains a hearing. 
Besides, acts in which boys dare not engage alone 
they will do en masse. The gang hides individ- 
uals, and courage rises in proportion to the chance 
of concealment. Gangs, however, may be con- 
structive. Here is where the leader is important. 
The leader of the gang is free from many of the 
limitations of his followers. They have their rep- 
utations to make. He has made his. What any 
set expects of its members is a powerful stimulus 
to activity in that direction. But the leader does 
not need to fight, because it was by proof of his 
superior prowess that he won his position. Es- 
capades are comparatively unimportant to him, 
since he has engaged in so many that his com- 
panions know that he has the "nerve." Of course 
he will engage in them if nothing better comes his 
way, but he is conscious of the importance of his 
leadership and these acts are a little plebeian for 
a ruler. To look upon them with indifference 
gives him a feeling of superiority. So he is more 
inclined to play the part of judge or arbiter. He 
likes to give the impression of having outgrown 
the puerile thoughts of those who look up to him 
for guidance. The reason why he acts less fre- 



THE SPIRIT OF THE GANG 281 

quently on this feeling is that nothing better is 
suggested. Teachers do not treat him as a ruler. 
They try to suppress him, and that is mortifying. 
So he defends his authority in the only way in 
which he has had any experience. 

The time when the biggest boy in the school 
must be whipped in order to demonstrate that 
the teacher, and not he, is in control, has passed; 
but he is still subjected to all sorts of humiliating 
penalties. Naturally, he must do something to 
maintain his prestige among his followers, and the 
secret revolts which he instigates are the weapons 
that are always used by the oppressed when they 
know that they are too weak for open resist- 
ance. 

We have said that the gang enlarges the self 
of its members. Its code of ethics we found to 
be an expression of the emerging social self. But 
the leader displays quite a different sort of self 
from that of his followers. They may aggress 
upon one another, but toward him they are obedi- 
ent. He, on the contrary, is never submissive. 
His resistance varies, of course, with the situation 
in which he finds himself. In the presence of his 
teachers he may even appear subdued, but that 
is only the diplomacy of one who is playing for 
time. 

The leader, however, possesses certain quaUties 



282 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

which, joined with his leadership, make him pre- 
eminently the point of social growth of the gang. 
The very fact of his leadership and his feeling that 
he is the protector of his followers gives him a 
social self which is in advance of that of his sub- 
ordinates. 

We remarked a few moments ago that the leader 
likes to appear superior to his associates, and that 
the reason for his engaging in the acts through 
which he gained his pre-eminence is his incapacity 
for social inventions. His feeling of leadership 
makes him anxious for new sources of glory, but 
originaHty is always limited by experience and 
the opportunities of boys are restricted. This is 
the teacher's chance. 

Boys are anxious for novel experiences. In- 
deed, they devote most of their energy to finding 
them. That is the trouble. If they were satis- 
fied with what is given, they could be easily di- 
rected, but with all their restlessness in inaction 
they are excessively particular about the way in 
which the experience is offered. The gang has its 
own parliamentary rules. This is not the name 
which the members give to their usage, but that 
is what it is. The business must be introduced in 
the proper way and this is where most teachers 
fail. They know that they have something good, 
and they cannot understand why the children do 



THE SPIRIT OF THE GANG 283 

not become enthusiastic. The cause of the in- 
difference is seen in the ease with which an occa- 
sional teacher secures attention to his work when 
others fail. For example, all school-masters will 
agree that theme-writing is one of the bores of 
the trade. But the writer knows one school in 
which the children take to it as they do to skat- 
ing, and the result is a quality of work rarely 
attained in any school. The difference is that 
the teacher of these youngsters plays according 
to the rules of the game. He recognizes the gang 
and introduces his business according to its un- 
written law. 

It is obvious that boys many times may act as 
a gang without any visible organization. Wher- 
ever there is a leader the gang spirit prevails. 
And they usually have a leader. 

The leader of the group is approachable. The 
reason has already been given. He takes his 
leadership seriously. His self is as variable as 
that of his subordinates, but it is made of differ- 
ent stuff. The very fact that he rules the entire 
band gives him a feeling of responsibility toward 
each member. So far as this feeling goes it is 
social. Ordinarily it is limited to managing the 
tribal activities, to demanding fair play, and to 
protecting the weak from the aggressions of the 
strong. It is, however, capable of extension. 



284 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

The fact that the leader is managing things in a 
small field makes him anxious for larger exploits, 
and the seriousness with which he thinks of his 
authority exposes him to the influence of sugges- 
tion. The problem, therefore, is to enlarge the 
activities of the gang so that they may include 
things which have wider social import. The 
leader is ready for this change because he is sur- 
feited with his own limited inventions. This is 
what has been done through the Boy Scouts, the 
Knights of King Arthur, and in the local gangs, 
whose transformation into social forces has been 
described in this and other chapters. 

Let us now return to our original problem — 
the use of these racial instincts in securing the 
attention for things and actions that are educa- 
tional. 

Our earlier illustrations have shown that chil- 
dren are rarely inattentive to work which they 
think their own. But the group sentiment is 
always active in determining what ideas shall oc- 
cupy the focus of consciousness. To remain mem- 
bers of the group, however, boys must attend to 
the business which it assigns. Making children 
feel that the work is theirs and not the teacher's 
means, then, securing the attention. This the 
schools have failed to do, and as a result teachers 
are continually working against the resistance of 



THE SPIRIT OF THE GANG 2S5 

the group consciousness. The school is compose J 
of two opposing forces: the one, the teacher, try- 
ing to win attention by creating factitious inter- 
ests, and the other, the children, momentarily 
attracted by these devices but always watchful 
of a chance to assert their social selves. 

The efficiency of the energy released by group 
sentiment is seen in the results accomplished under 
the name of play. It is not the nature of the 
activity that distinguishes work from play so 
much as the mental attitude assumed toward the 
occupation. We have seen that the same sub- 
jects of study are tedious under the ordinary class 
method and interesting when made the order of 
business in a club of the members of the class 
of which the teacher is an integral but inconspic- 
uous part. The club idea appeals to the racial 
instincts of love of glory — showing off — and per- 
sonal competition, both of which are elements in 
the group sentiment. There is no lack of atten- 
tion here. 

The utilization of the racial instincts in secur- 
ing attention to educative ideas has been resisted 
by school men largely because of the educationc^l 
dogma of the value of effort. Effort has been 
greatly overworked of late. Attention does its 
best work when the feeling of effort is wanting. 
Effort indicates resistance or strain, and accom- 



286 YOUTH AND* THE RACE 

panics inefficient attention. As we become pro- 
ficient in our work, it decreases and finally dis- 
appears entirely. The reverence for effort has 
arisen in the misapprehension of the relation of 
feelings to attention, and in the behef that strain 
has some occult pedagogical value. It is inten- 
sity of thought which counts in mental develop- 
ment. The feeling of effort adds no value to the 
educative process. Consciousness of strain indi- 
cates imperfect attention with undue prominence 
of muscular sensations or friction. The friction 
may be caused by the novelty of the ideas, by 
bodily discomfort, as in the strains due to reflex 
neuroses,^ or by temporary mental incongruity, 
as in the case of an adult who has heard bad 
news. With children the same effect is produced 
by the resistance and inhibitions caused by racial 
impulses. If the incongruity is permanent be- 
cause of inability to give the ideas an orderly 
arrangement among the dominant thoughts and 
feelings of the learner, their educational value is 
at least doubtful. 

Attention, then, is determined by past and pres- 
ent states of consciousness. In childhood the 
stuff out of which these mental states are made 
is largely racial and social, as typified by the 
spirit of the gang, and continued attention can 

* "Mind in the Making," by Edgar James Swift, p. Ii6. 



THE SPIRIT OF THE GANG 287 

be secured only by creating educational situations 
in which the school consciousness loses its identity 
in the racial and social consciousness of the chil- 
dren. 



CHAPTER VIII 
THE RELEASE OF MENTAL FORCES 

In an earlier chapter we have seen that chil- 
dren respond with great sensitiveness to their sur- 
roundings, thus revealing a characteristic common 
to all living organisms — that of adaptation to en- 
vironment. Let us carry the biological analogy 
still further to show that the more highly devel- 
oped the animal the greater the flexibility of re- 
sponse to given stimuli. This background of race 
history should clarify much that has been said 
concerning the imperative necessity of creating an 
environment for the child which shall not only 
keep pace with his racial and neural growth, but 
which shall be freed from obstacles to growth. 

Since the time of Darwin, it has been a matter 
of common scientific knowledge that animals and 
plants may undergo such great changes as to make 
it often difficult, if not impossible, to trace their 
origin. The significant fact, however, as we have 
already seen, is the amazing extent to which this 
adaptation may be directed through control over 
the environment. Klebs,^ in explaining the re- 

^ Jahrbiicher jiir wissenschaftliche Botanik, vol. 42, p. 155. 
288 



THE RELEASE OF MENTAL FORCES 289 

markable changes which have been produced in 
plants by himself and others, assumes that each 
plant has a definite structure capable of variation 
within certain limits which are, nevertheless, wide 
enough to permit striking alterations in the nature 
of the plant. These variations are the result, 
Klebs tells us, of latent potentiahties which are 
actualized by suitable stimuli. "When we be- 
come sufficiently acquainted with the external con- 
ditions appropriate to a given variation and can 
apply them practically, the variations," he says, 
"must necessarily occur." ^ Now, this quality of 
adaptation is much more characteristic of man 
than of plants or lower animals. Indeed, the 
lower we go in the scale of living organisms the 
more reasonable is our surprise at the manifesta- 
tion of extreme degrees of adaptation, for the life 
habits of plants depend primarily upon their struct- 
ure, and readaptation of structure is more diffi- 
cult than physiological adaptation. While it is 
doubtless as correct to speak of physiological 
states in plants as in the lower animals, the nu- 
clei and protoplasmic threads which act respec- 
tively as nerve cells and fibres in the former can 
hardly serve so efficiently as even the most ele- 
mentary nerve cells and fibres of animals. We 
should therefore expect adaptation to be more 

' Op cit., p. 303. 



290 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

limited in range the lower the animal, and in 
plants we should look for still more restricted pos- 
sibilities. This seems to be Jennings's view when 
he says, "in the higher animals, and especially in 
man, the essential features in behavior depend 
very largely on the life history of the individual; 
in other words, upon the present physiological 
condition of the individual, as determined by the 
stimuli it has received and the reactions it has 
performed. But in this respect the higher ani- 
mals do not differ in principle, but only in degree, 
from the lower organisms. . . ." ^ Francis Dar- 
win evidently holds the same opinion when he 
says concerning Jennings's statement: "I venture 
to believe that this is true of plants as well as of 
animals, and that it is further broadly true not 
only of physiological behavior but of the changes 
that are classed as morphological," ^ i. e., struct- 
ural. But the story does not end here, for Jen- 
nings has shown that even among the lower 
organisms "behavior is not, as a rule, on the 
tropism plan — a set, forced method of reacting to 
each particular agent — but takes place in a much 
more flexible, less directly machine-like way, by 
the method of trial and error." ' 

Observation of more highly organized animals 

'"Contributions to the Study of the Behavior of Lower Organ- 
isms," p. 124. 

'Science, vol. 28, 1908, p. 359. ^ Op. cit., p. 252. 



THE RELEASE OF MENTAL FORCES 291 

reveals greater flexibility in actions. A few in- 
stances will show the sort of change which takes 
place. 

English sparrows "are able to modify their 
habits readily. They discriminate small differ- 
ences in the apparatus (by which their intelli- 
gence is tested) and adjust their actions accord- 
ingly." ^ 

"The cowbird learns to distinguish between dif- 
ferent designs — the three horizontal black lines on 
one card to be distinguished from a blank card, 
and a card marked with a black diamond from a 
blank card." The one of which we are speaking 
"also showed that she was learning to distinguish 
the triangle." ^ 

A blind rat with which Willard S. Small was 
experimenting selected a new and shorter path 
with little hesitation. "After the second trial he 
rarely went astray. . . . The old habit (of follow- 
ing the longer route with which he had been fa- 
miliar for weeks) was quickly broken, and a new, 
more advantageous one established. This prefer- 
ence for the shorter path is difficult to explain 
except upon the supposition that the path is 
known as shorter. . . . Unless the advantage of 
the new path over the old is known in some way, 

* "A Preliminary Study of the Psychology of the English Sparrow," 
by James P. Porter, American Journal of Psychology, vol. 15, p. 346. 
^ Op. ciu, vol. 17, pp. 269-270. 



292 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

the old habit would persist simply in virtue of its 
own inertia." ^ 

Evidently among higher species the machine 
element in the response of animals to their en- 
vironment becomes less noticeable. The ques- 
tions regarding behavior which have been asked 
with reference to the lower forms were: "Is any 
other factor besides the mechanical organization 
of the animal operative in the response.'"' "Does 
their behavior differ essentially from that of the 
plants whose roots grow down into the earth and 
whose stem seeks the light?" The question is 
now changed to: "How much intelHgence is in- 
volved in the actions of these animals?" "Are 
they able to imitate in the sense of profiting from 
the experience of one another?" 

Still higher in the animal scale the problem 
again changes. "Do animals reason?" is the way 
in which the question is now put. It is not the 
purpose of the writer to discuss this perplexing 
problem. The correctness of one view or the 
other is unessential here. The important fact is 
that the actions of higher animals cause the ques- 
tion to be seriously asked. The problem of intel- 
ligence evidently changes as we ascend the animal 
series. A few instances from the higher animals 
may be cited for further illustration. 

' "Experimental Studies of the Mental Processes of the Rat," by 
Willard S. Small, American Journal oj Psychology, vol. 12, p. 238. 



THE RELEASE OF MENTAL FORCES 293 

"Roger came to us three years ago, a forlorn 
and hopeless-looking puppy," says the owner. ^ 
"He was a full-blooded mongrel of the cocker- 
spaniel persuasion. His thick black coat was 
rough and dirty and his tail was habitually be- 
tween his legs. He had been taken into two 
homes only to be turned out again as utterly 
'impossible.'" After kind treatment had brought 
back Roger's self-respect his education was begun. 
He received about ten minutes' training each day 
for two years. At the end of that time "he could 
spell anything which I could spell without being 
taught. I asked for Constantinople, phthisic, 
pneumonia, and for problems like 2X3 +4 -r- 
2 — 1. He never made a mistake. Fractions 
presented no difficulties to him. He selected colors 
correctly the first time he saw them and made 
change as quickl}^ as any cashier." This is the 
statement of the owner. 

Let us now turn to Dr. Yerkes's account of the 
dog: 

"I watched intently everything that dog and 
trainer did, with the discouraging result that I 
failed to discover anything which could account 
for the large proportion of correct answers which 
were given. ... I am free to say that at the end 
of this first performance I was deeply interested 

^ Century Magazine, vol. 53, p. 598. 



294 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

in what I had seen, and not a little puzzled by 
it. The dog had answered questions remarkably 
well. He had added, subtracted, spelled, and 
done a number of his pretty little tricks with a 
degree of accuracy which compelled admiration." ^ 
The result of later investigation convinced Dr. 
Yerkes that Roger's "answers are dictated by slight 
voluntary and involunatry movements of his 
trainer, and not by recognition of the letters and 
numbers and intelligent use of them to answer 
questions. ... I must add, however, that these 
movements are not readily seen by the observer 
when Roger is in practice and does his best. It 
is highly probable that the dog's visual sensitive- 
ness to movement is greater than ours." 

Yerkes's conclusions agree with those reached in 
the investigation of "Der kluge Hans," the Ger- 
man horse whose wonderful feats in reading, spell- 
ing, giving the names of those to whom he had 
been introduced, and solving complex arithmetical 
problems involving fractions were heralded round 
the world a few years ago. Pfungst ^ discovered 
that clever Hans could not reply correctly to 
questions when the answers were unknown to 
the questioner. Fraud was eUminated by the 
fact that the horse answered correctly questions 

* "The Behavior of Roger," by Robert M. Yerkes, Century Maga- 
zine, vol. 53, p. 602. 

* "Das Pferd des Herrn v. Osten," by Oscar Pfungst. 



THE RELEASE OF MENTAL FORCES 295 

put by the investigator and by others who were 
only interested in the psychological aspects of the 
performance. The success of the investigator in 
obtaining correct answers also proved that the 
movements which served Hans as a cue were in- 
voluntary movements of the head, body, and limbs, 
accompanying intense attention. These move- 
ments, which the spectators did not detect, were 
observed by the horse and translated into appro- 
priate actions. So he could spell any word which 
the questioner could spell, or give the answer of 
difficult problems in arithmetic by pawing with 
his hoof according to the language code which he 
had been taught. But let us now turn to an even 
more remarkable exhibition of mental flexibility, 
this time in the animal closest to man. 

"Peter" is a chimpanzee whose intelligence was 
recently tested in the psychological laboratory of 
the University of Pennsylvania. He had been 
under training for show purposes during two and 
a half years. It will be sufficient for our present 
purpose to cite a few of his actions under condi- 
tions requiring considerable selective attention 
and discrimination. 

Peter had been accustomed to lock and unlock 
an old-fashioned padlock with a large key. Dr. 
Witmer gave him a smaller one with a thin bar 
bent Hke a staple which must be inserted at the 



296 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

end of the padlock and pushed home when the 
lock was to be closed. The keyhole was at the 
end opposite the staple-like bar. "The key was 
a small one," says Dr. Witmer,^ "difficult to in- 
sert and difficult to turn after it had been in- 
serted. As soon as Peter saw this lock, it ab- 
sorbed his entire attention. ... I unlocked it for 
him and took out the staple attachment. I put 
the staple back and locked it, withdrawing the 
key. I was about to reinsert the key, thinking it 
too difficult a test to start him with, when he 
reached for the key, and turning the lock into 
the correct position, promptly inserted it and un- 
locked it more rapidly than I had done a moment 
before. He then pulled out the staple with a look 
I cannot but term triumphant, expressing, 'There! 
you see I have done it.' I then told him to put 
the staple back and lock it. He inserted one 
prong of the staple, but unfortunately had not 
solved the problem of putting the two prongs in 
at once. He kept turning the staple around, but 
it would not go into place. ... I then employed 
a test which demonstrated his intelhgence most 
clearly. Holding the lock before him, I pulled 
the staple slowly out, moved it several inches 
away, and reinserted it. I repeated this perform- 

*"A Monkey with a Mind," by Lightner Witmer, Psychological 
Clinic, vol. 3, p. i88. 



THE RELEASE OF MENTAL FORCES 297 

ance two or three times and then passed the 
lock to Peter. He seized it eagerly, slowly and 
carefully pulled out the staple until it was not 
more than a quarter of an inch beyond the lock, 
and then carefully reinserted it in place, shoving 
it home with a smack of his hand. There could 
be no doubt that he appreciated the danger of los- 
ing the combination and was taking no chances 
on getting the staple too far away from the body 
of the lock. He then turned the key in the lock 
and at my verbal request handed the lock back 
to me." 

Perhaps the most remarkable of Peter's skilful 
acts was the discernment which he displayed in 
the use of the hammer and screw-driver. "A 
hammer and a piece of board on which were some 
nails and screws were given him. The hammer 
had a reversible head, a round one for buffing 
and a flat one for driving nails. It differed from 
the hammer which I saw him use at a private 
interview in the theatre, and probably was un- 
like any that he had ever seen. I gave him the 
hammer in such a way that when he grasped it 
in his hand he held it in position for striking with 
the round head. Hesitating a moment, he brought 
the round head to his mouth, felt it with his lips, 
turned the head about, felt the flat end, and in- 
stantly proceeded to drive several nails into the 



298 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

board with the proper head. He never mistook 
a screw for a nail." He was then handed a screw 
instead of a nail. *'He stuck the screw into a 
small hole in the board and at once selected a 
screw-driver, paying no attention whatever to the 
hammer lying on the table. . . . There were three 
screw-drivers on the table, and he first picked out 
a medium-sized one, which was a little too large 
for the purpose. He next tried the smallest one 
and made several turns of the screw, always turn- 
ing the screw-driver in the right direction. He 
did this as a child might do it, or an adult not 
expert in handling tools." 

Finally, Dr. Witmer tested Peter's abihty to 
imitate simple writing. "I drew forward a black- 
board the writing surface of which he could eas- 
ily reach when standing upon the table. He took 
a piece of chalk eagerly and before I had made 
any mark upon the board, began to scrawl in a 
corner of It. I took the chalk from him and said, 
'Peter, I want you to do this,' and rapidly made 
the letter W in four strokes. Peter's attention 
had not been fully given while I made the letter. 
He took the chalk and scrawled beneath in much 
the same manner as he had done before. I picked 
up another piece of chalk and said, 'Now look, 
this is what I want you to do,' and traced an- 
other W over the one which I had just drawn. 



THE RELEASE OF MENTAL FORCES 299 

Peter watched the operation intently, then with 
the chalk in his hand he quickly made four move- 
ments and drew a fairly perfect letter W be- 
neath the W which I had traced. ... I asked 
him to try again, and he made at some distance 
from the first letter another W, somewhat less 
perfectly formed." 

As has already been said, it is unessential for 
our present purposes whether Roger and Peter 
"reasoned" or not. The important fact is their 
ability to construct new experiences — to adapt 
themselves to situations belonging to a higher 
level of Hfe. Amcebae and Paramecia, according 
to Jennings, use the " trial-and-error " method. 
Previously acquired experience counts with them 
for nothing. The rats tested by Small followed 
the same method, but having hit upon a success- 
ful way they retain it. They do not always re- 
trace the old, useless reactions, as do the Amcebae 
and Paramecia, until they again happen by chance 
upon the successful response. But Small found 
no evidence that his rats "learned to do anything 
by seeing another do it — the purposive associa- 
tion of another's action with a desired end." In 
the case of Roger and Peter, however, purposive 
imitation is evident. Indeed, Roger, like " Der 
kluge Hans," not only imitated, but in addition 
quite clearly made inferences from involuntary 



300 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

movements of his teachers, while Peter imitated 
writing and exercised discriminative judgment in 
his selection of tools. 

When one studies the nervous system of the 
animals of which we have been speaking, it is 
found that the change of questions regarding their 
mentality comes with improvement in nervous 
structure. Some of the organisms which Jen- 
nings investigated have no nervous system. The 
others possess only the most rudimentary sort. 
As differentiation in internal organization pro- 
ceeds, the problem of inteUigence arises and it 
becomes increasingly prominent as the nervous 
mechanism grows more complex. 

Evidently, then, flexibility in response to stim- 
uli increases with the degree of development of 
the animal, and in man we find the greatest vari- 
ety of possible adaptations. Further, as has been 
shown by Herder and, again, by John Fisk, the 
lengthened period of infancy in man was impera- 
tive that he might meet the increasing and vary- 
ing demands of his environment for new adapta- 
tions. 

The flexibility of this period is what gives 
teachers their chance. The "period of infancy" 
is only another term for the formative period 
which extends through childhood, and the school 
task, as we have seen, is not merely to teach, 



THE RELEASE OF MENTAL FORCES 301 

but to furnish situations which shall stimulate 
reactions leading to mental and moral growth. 
The problem is therefore a constructive one in the 
calculation of which all the racial and individual 
characteristics of the children must be reckoned 
with. 

Our brief survey of some of the changes which 
occur in the evolution of animals shows that train- 
ing and education should be consistent with the 
stage of growth which the nervous system has 
attained, and that they should change with the 
progress of internal organization. In the case of 
infants this is done, though apparently less from 
intelligence than because nothing else is possible. 
At the beginning of the school age, again, some 
progress has been made in the method employed. 
A few of the contributions to child psychology 
have been incorporated in school practice. But 
here our appreciation must end. Throughout the 
remainder of the school course, the methods fol- 
lowed are as though the nervous system, and with 
it the mind, made no further progress. On the 
intellectual side, memory and imitation absorb 
the attention of teachers, and in conduct the ap- 
peal continues to be made to motives of earlier 
childhood. For the schools, the boy never be- 
comes a reasoning creature. Rules and facts make 
up the content of every subject. Even laboratory 



302 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

work is so arranged that the best marks may be 
secured through memory and imitation. When 
the teacher does not perform the experiments for 
the class, he prepares such exphcit directions that 
the pupils are relieved of the labor of thinking. 
This is first-class chimpanzee education, and the 
only qualification which Peter lacks to complete 
his studies for graduation is the ability to read 
and to understand spoken language. So far as 
imitation is concerned, he can meet the require- 
ments. Naturally boys feel much the same sort 
of organic resistance to perpetuating these child- 
hood methods that they show toward continuing 
to wear short trousers. They do not fit their 
age. So incorrigibility and truancy, with the ac- 
companying retardation, follow. 

Our problem of breaking down the mental resist- 
ance of children to work and of releasing their 
mental forces has been simplified by investiga- 
tions in the changes which boys undergo during 
the school period. Those who have had much to 
do with boys from twelve to sixteen years of age 
have found the social, co-operative factor about 
the strongest element in their lives. They may 
be thoroughly obtuse to motives which appeal to 
adults, but, as has been shown in earlier chapters, 
they are never oblivious of the demands of their 
own group. They work with untiring vigor to 



THE RELEASE OF MENTAL FORCES 303 

accomplish what their gang has put upon them. 
Here, then, we seem to have the key to the situa- 
tion — to appropriate some of the group enthusi- 
asm for the advancement of learning among boys. 
After all, the irresistible longing to grapple with 
situations and to win, is the central purpose of 
school training. Under these circumstances knowl- 
edge comes incidentally and in abundance, because 
it is essential to what the children are doing. 

Fortunately, the conditions which develop these 
habits of action are identical with those to which 
children respond with the greatest zest. They 
revel in problems to work out, singly or in groups, 
by investigation or conference, when once the 
group spirit has been aroused. If the entire 
responsibility for success or failure rests with 
leaders whom the children have selected, so much 
the better, since leaders from among themselves 
are relentless in their demands. This sort of 
work furnishes a range of adaptation, so far as 
studies are concerned, sufficiently wide and flexi- 
ble to meet the requirements of each child. The 
appeal to the instincts of children to organize 
and direct the things that concern themselves 
(the group-activity impulses), to investigate (curi- 
osity), supplies a powerful incentive to work. 
Knowledge and morality take care of themselves. 
The former is acquired by each one doing his 



304 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

share of the common labor, and moral action is 
demanded by the ethics of fair play and by the 
intolerance of children for shirking and cheating. 
Demolins has shown how powerful these incen- 
tives to morality are in I'Ecole des Roches. "The 
school," he says, "is entrusted to the children. 
It is their affair; they have the responsibihty for 
order and behavior. The confidence which we 
feel in them and the respect which we show de- 
velop in turn self-reliance and respect for them- 
selves." ^ 

At Abbotsholme, in England, the model for 
I'Ecole des Roches, the native impulse of children 
to participate in the management of what they 
do, is, again, the moving force in the acquisition 
of knowledge as well as of habits of self-control. 
Here teachers and pupils work together, study 
together, and participate equally in the discus- 
sion of the ways and means of accomplishing 
what they set before themselves. The difference 
between work and play does not arise, because no 
distinction is made. Each appeals to the same 
racial impulse to group action in which all have 
equal share and interest. The head-master of 
Abbotsholme, Mr. Cecil Reddie, speaking of him- 
self and his associates at the beginning of their 
career as teachers, when they were following the 

1 "L'Education nouvelle," par Edmond Demolins. 



THE RELEASE OF MENTAL FORCES 305 

traditional methods of the school, says: *'0n be- 
coming a school-master, the first thing we found 
was that the mere fact of being a teacher by pro- 
fession raised an immense wall, unknown before, 
between us and our pupils." ^ Now, however, 
"the antagonism which usually exists in a school 
between boys and masters has been avoided by 
. . . co-operation and participation. Masters and 
pupils co-operate together and share in the re- 
sult — an expanded life for all. 'My learning is 
playing and my playing is learning,' as the old 
Dutch song says, finds here its practical realiza- 
tion, for in this school even the recreation has to 
some extent a utiUtarian aspect." - 

I am aware that all teachers will maintain that 
they co-operate with the children in their school. 
This claim is a part of the pedagogical cant. But 
when a pedantic teacher joins his pupils in their 
activities his feeling of superiority and his con- 
descension are so evident that the children would 
gladly be rid of him. At Abbotsholme, on the 
contrary, work and play are so intermingled that 
it is difl&cult to tell where one begins and the other 
ends. In the control and direction of the work, 
again, one could not easily distinguish master 
from pupil. Professional dignity, the pest of edu- 

' "Abbotsholme," by Cecil Reddie, p. 15. 

' Letter from J. C. Van Eyk, in "Abbotsholme," by Cecil Reddie, 
p. 102. 



306 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

cation, has been thrown aside. And through it 
all recognition of racial instincts is fundamental. 

The difference in efficiency produced by the 
school consciousness and the social consciousness 
is seen in an experiment which has been tried for 
several years in the McKinley High School at 
Saint Louis. The senior Latin class organized 
into a club for debates in Latin. Everything that 
is said in their meetings is spoken in Latin. 
Among the subjects which have been discussed 
are: "Constitutum sit: oratorem plus quam po- 
etam valere"; "Constitutum sit: apud recenti- 
ores Romanos plus quam Graecos valuisse"; and 
"Constitutum sit: feminis dandum esse suffra- 
gium." The first speeches of each debate are 
carefully written out beforehand, but the closing 
reply of the leader of the affirmative is always 
written during the progress of the debate. The 
keenest interest is shown in these discussions, and 
the attitude of the entire class has changed. Sup- 
pose the task of writing an essay of half a dozen 
or more pages of Latin had been assigned. Any 
teacher knows the resistance which it would have 
aroused. Yet these boys and girls are eager to 
undertake the work because they are managing 
it and because the spirit of group emulation has 
been awakened. 

The developmental value of stimuli depends 



THE RELEASE OF MENTAL FORCES 307 

upon their relation to the needs of the individual. 
Among the lower animals the requirements of 
members of a species are the same. The individ- 
ual has no consideration beyond that which profits 
his kind. It is only when we come to man that 
personal characteristics claim attention. The 
problem then changes. It is no longer forced 
adaptation to a given set of chance conditions 
wherever they may lead, but rather the devel- 
opment of the species through improving the per- 
sons who compose it. 

The moment that individuals enter into our cal- 
culations, we must take account of the conditions 
which make for personal growth. Development 
is, of course, an exceedingly complex process. 
Many things which enter into it are beyond the 
control of teachers. Two contributing factors, 
however, are decidedly school matters. One of 
these is the content of the subjects of study, and 
the other the attitude of the pupils toward their 
work. Since the subject-matter of the curriculum, 
however significant it may be, has little develop- 
mental value without preliminary work in prepara- 
tion for the recitation, the fundamental problem 
is to create in the pupils an attitude of mind 
similar to that which they have toward their own 
activities. It is folly to talk to them about the 
advantages of education, because they will not 



308 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

believe you. They have not had the experience 
which is needed to appreciate knowledge. The 
school method is to force the pupils to study 
through fear of penalties or to coax them by re- 
wards. Both of these plans have ignominiously 
failed. The first fosters deception and produces 
cowards. As regards the work accomplished under 
this incentive, at best only so much is done as 
self-protection prompts. The second incentive 
arouses merely an artificial interest. It makes 
little difference whether the rewards are of the 
ginger-bread variety or high marks. The desire 
to make a good appearance in recitations and ex- 
aminations is the propelling force, and this leads 
to the sort of study that makes a briUiant show- 
ing for the moment, rather than to the spirit of 
inquiry and investigation which underlies real 
scholarship. Even if the reward is educative it 
fails to accompHsh the desired purpose. Children 
of stamina revolt against the principle. In a 
school familiar to the writer the privilege of read- 
ing the books of the school library is reserved for 
those who study and are "good." The result is 
that few read. Those who do, try not to be caught 
in the act. One boy who had been the most troub- 
lesome and the least responsive was punished by 
being sent from the room, in accordance with the 
custom of the school. Happening into the Hbrary, 



THE RELEASE OF MENTAL FORCES 309 

his teacher found him absorbed in a book. Con- 
versation disclosed the fact that the boy wanted 
to read, but would not purchase the pleasure at 
the price of receiving favors for good conduct. 
So he purposely created disturbance that he might 
be sent from the room. He could then revel in 
reading. 

If fear of punishment, hope of reward, and so- 
cial obHgations fail, the problem of producing a 
responsive attitude in the pupils seems to reduce 
itself to making situations which shall fit into the 
undeveloped thoughts and acts of children in such 
a way that study shall constitute an essential part 
of their activities. I am aware that this sounds 
vague when stated abstractly, but concrete illus- 
trations have been given in earlier chapters. In 
pupil-governed schools, for example, the attitude 
of children toward their work is wholly altered. 
Study becomes a part of thoir organized self-con- 
trol. Their lessons are no longer put upon them 
by the authority of their teacher, but instead are 
the work which they have tacitly agreed among 
themselves to do. 

Pupil-government, however, is not the only 
method by which the educative attitude may be 
produced. Mr. Arthur Holmes has made an im- 
portant contribution^ to the possibihties of troub- 

^ "An Educational Experiment," Psychological Clinic, vol. 4, p. 155. 



310 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

lesome, adolescent boys. The ages of his thir- 
teen lads ranged from eleven to fifteen years, and 
among them all there was a choice variety of the 
wayward characteristics of spoiled, sullen, and 
lazy boys. "Six were moral delinquents, having 
stolen from their homes or other places." One 
other had been arrested, two were in charge of 
probation officers of the juvenile court, two others 
were backward and morally delinquent, and four 
were merely backward in their school-work. "In 
every case there was some reason which made the 
parents anxious to have their boys put under 
special training, the only exception being one nor- 
mal boy, who accompanied his brother for the 
sake of companionship. . . . Taken as a whole a 
more difficult group of boys could scarcely be 
found, whether it was a question of pursuing the 
ordinary methods used in the public schools or 
any form of group or class work. 

"The physical, intellectual, and temperamental 
disposition of each boy was taken into considera- 
tion and every effort made to correct any abnor- 
malities, to take cognizance of any peculiarities, 
and to make adjustments of conditions to these 
where necessary. . . . The boys were to be held 
in the class, not by physical force, but by making 
an appeal to the adolescent interests which were 
assumed to be rich and varied enough to hold 



THE RELEASE OF MENTAL FORCES 311 

them during the period of instruction and to serve 
as a basis for the control of conduct during their 
later lives. This was done by providing intellec- 
tual, physical, manual, and recreative studies and 
exercises under the leadership of persons experi- 
enced in dealing with boys. . . . The regular 
school books of the public schools of Philadelphia 
were used for the various studies in the class." 

In manual training, "instead of beginning in 
the prescribed way with the fundamentals of tool 
handHng and sloyd, each boy was presented with 
sufficient material to manufacture one object. He 
was given a concrete piece of work to do. His 
first attempt was the manufacture of a small 
windmill. . . . Furthermore, each boy was per- 
mitted to work as rapidly as he chose. Some of 
the boys finished their windmills long before the 
others, and these completed specimens became 
objects of emulation. . . . Though the work was 
primarily individual, it was at the same time so- 
cial. All the boys were working upon the same 
thing. The constant interest in one another's 
progress, their interchange of questions, sugges- 
tions, tools and material emphasized the social 
factor and did as much as almost anything else 
to amalgamate the varied elements into a well- 
working whole. 

"In addition to the handwork of manual train- 



312 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

ing, there were daily physical exercises. The 
physical instruction consisted of swimming and 
regular gymnastic exercises in the university gym- 
nasium, as well as games conducted both indoors 
and out. 

"At first it was utterly impossible to secure 
anything like regularity in physical movements. 
There was no order, rhythm, or co-ordination 
among the different individuals. Each boy kept 
his own time and tried to follow the leader as best 
he could. . . . Squeers' famous class, as described 
by Dickens, hardly surpassed them for idiosyn- 
crasies. . . . Gradually co-ordination began to 
develop in the class as a whole. They followed 
their leader more closely. . . . The conduct of the 
class as a whole became better; more attention 
was given to the instructor's orders, exercises were 
begun promptly and continued the required time. 
The boys improved in their treatment of each 
other. Slowly an esprit de corps crept in and be- 
fore the six weeks were up a fairly well-organized 
gymnastic class had emerged from the first day's 
crowd of unmanageable fellows." 

In baseball, "fair play was at a premium, and 
any trickery, dishonesty, or foul play met with 
immediate condemnation from the boys them- 
selves." 

As a result of the six weeks' experiment Holmes 



THE RELEASE OF MENTAL FORCES 313 

proved that "boys, no matter how unmanageable 
by agencies already existing, can be interested 
and held to right activities. Not one boy was 
expelled from the class or sent home even for a 
time. Not one became a permanent truant or 
was compelled to return to school except by his 
own free will." And these ''right activities" in- 
cluded "regular daily tasks difficult to accompHsh 
and good in their results. . . . Confirmed truants 
will go to the right school, constant pilferers will 
restrain their thievishness, idlers will work, Hars 
will tell the truth, if only they can be shown that 
natural instincts and legitimate desires can be 
best satisfied by upright moral conduct." 

Another instance, somewhat different in type, 
will illustrate the wide range of the method which 
we are urging. 

A young man fresh from college was placed in 
charge of about forty as determined boys and 
girls as ever combined to break in "the new 
teacher." Having received no instruction in the 
history of education, he was wholly unacquainted 
with the principles which enabled Pestalozzi to 
produce one of the most disorderly schools of 
which we have any record, and to have his name 
enrolled with honorable mention in the scroll of 
"educational reformers." The only "methods" 
with which the new teacher was familiar were 



314 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

those used in the schools of his boyhood, which 
could hardly have been worse. Perhaps his igno- 
rance was not altogether unfortunate. At any 
rate he had been spared, in his lack of training, 
some "model" pedagogical exhibitions which must 
seriously disturb the celestial bliss of those in 
whose names the performances are staged. 

The necessity of maintaining discipline was al- 
most the only "approved" pedagogical principle 
with which the new school-master was acquainted. 
That there is more than one sort of discipline, 
that "good order" is the condition in a group 
which produces the highest eJfEciency of the 
workers, and that a state which would be dis- 
orderly for one purpose is the most productive 
order for another, was as Uttle known to him as 
observation indicates it is to many teachers to-day. 
So he set himself to the task of establishing dis- 
cipline as a preliminary to teaching. 

Meanwhile his training in pedagogy was pro- 
gressing. The teachers' meetings were a great 
help. They were a kind of general "complainery" 
where all the faults of all the children were al- 
ways discussed. It did not occur to any of the 
teachers at that time that such general and contin- 
uous complaints indicated a cause in themselves. 
They were serious and conscientious, but their 
conviction was always in evidence that the pupils 



THE RELEASE OF MENTAL FORCES 315 

were unappreciative of the splendid privilege of 
being under their instruction. And all the time 
they were dragging the children through their 
daily tasks like convict laborers at a contract 
price. Yet they wondered why the vivacious 
youngsters were in a continual state of suppressed 
revolt. 

These experience meetings afforded the teachers 
a great deal of pedagogical consolation. This com- 
fort came chiefly from the consciousness that others 
were having like troubles with the same children, 
and this assurance justified the conceit in each 
that he was doing things in the right way. The 
part of the symposium which consisted of a run- 
ning commentary on the pupils was never slighted, 
and afterward as much of the time as was left 
was given to educational questions of larger im- 
port. 

By this time the new teacher was obtaining 
some little knowledge of the history of education. 
One of the striking facts in the meetings, as well 
as in the teachers' institutes which he attended, 
was the manifest reverence for authority and the 
fluent use of language formulae which seemed to 
have no very definite meaning to those who ut- 
tered them. They were evidently expressions 
which had been heard and repeated so many 
times that they rolled out glibly when the right 



316 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

string was pulled. Feeling that his ignorance of 
the subject and lack of experience called for an 
inquiring attitude of mind, the new teacher some- 
times asked what the expressions meant and why 
they should be accepted. The answer was always 
the same. Pestalozzi, Froebel, or Herbart said so. 

Meanwhile efforts to maintain discipline had 
succeeded, as far at least as concerned visible dis- 
order. The teacher, however, was continually re- 
minded of the observation that the eyes of some 
photographs follow one in every direction as one 
passes in front of them. The only difference was 
that, in his school, the eyes stealthily followed 
him to the rear of the room, a feat of which pho- 
tographs, so far as he could discover, are incapable. 

When pedagogical advice was sought from the 
experienced, the indefiniteness of the response 
would have been a credit to the oracles of ancient 
Greece. "Get them interested in their work," 
was the reply. Very good, but how."* Where was 
the stable support upon which to rest the lever? 
Visits to the classes of other teachers showed the 
same condition of inattention to work. Some 
teachers were "securing the attention" by keep- 
ing the inattentive after school. It was notice- 
able, however, that the same children generally 
remained. Others were seeking to accomplish the 
desired result by sternness. But it was quite 



THE RELEASE OF MENTAL FORCES 317 

evident that all were cherishing the fond delu- 
sion that their pupils were interested in their 
studies, whereas they were chiefly occupied with 
escaping the penalties of detection in their pranks. 
Most of the children could repeat the lesson of 
the book, but the simplest question regarding 
cause and effect made it clear that they were 
repeating from memory, a feat in which children 
are astonishingly proficient. The teacher tried to 
follow the advice of his pedagogical Nestors, to 
make the work interesting, and here he made a 
discovery in child psychology. There was no dif- 
ficulty in making a recitation interesting. Stories 
about the men or events of the lesson and bits of 
applied science in the science classes did that. 
The children sat agog during the recital. But the 
difficulty arose when he tried to carry this inter- 
est over into the drier facts and principles. The 
only portion of his contribution to the recitation 
which the children remembered on the following 
day were the historical and biographical stories 
and the striking applications of science. Their 
bearing upon the topics was forgotten, and the 
teacher was unable to see that the children studied 
their lessons more seriously because of the interest 
which the incidents awakened. The result forced 
the conviction that the momentary interest of the 
children, together with the teachers' enthusiasm 



318 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

for the exposition, led to the delusion in the mind 
of those earnest but simple pedagogues that in- 
terest awakened by devices of this sort spreads 
over the whole work and increases the general effi- 
ciency of the children. The teacher became sat- 
isfied that the interest was supposititious, that 
even in the grammar school scholastic efficiency 
requires a more solid basis than involuntary at- 
tention. So he decided to break away from tra- 
dition and try an experiment. The situation 
seemed to warrant heroic treatment. The chil- 
dren were getting practically nothing and an- 
other plan could hardly give worse results. 

Believing that the change would be more effec- 
tive if the suggestion came from their leaders, the 
teacher invited three of the older boys to go fishing 
on a Saturday morning. No fish were caught, but 
every one had a good time and an opportunity to 
talk without the constraint of the school-room. 
The boys conversed freely, as is easy in the 
woods, and it was not long before they were tell- 
ing their plans for the future. They did not 
think that they were getting much at school, a 
conclusion to which the teacher silently agreed, 
and they intended to leave as soon as their par- 
ents would give permission. 

It was not difficult to convince them that skill 
in tracking questions to their solution and the 



THE RELEASE OF MENTAL FORCES 319 

habit of accurate thinking would be serviceable 
in their practice of law and medicine, or in what- 
ever occupation they might select. " But we don't 
do that," they said; "we just learn what the book 
says." 

This was the opportunity for suggesting the new 
plan. It was put in the form of questions. Would 
they like it and would it work? 

They thought it would be lots of fun and not a 
bit like school, but they didn't think some of the 
boys would study. This last was particularly en- 
tertaining since these three were the least studious 
and most troublesome in the school. 

They were told that they could make it work if 
they would, but if they did not like the idea it had 
better not be tried. 

The plan, in brief, was to organize the school 
into a club with elective officers. Every Satur- 
day they would go into the woods to see what 
they could find for the science and geography 
classes. The club was to have charge of every- 
thing that concerned the school as a whole, and 
each class should decide by vote at the close of 
the recitation what things should be studied for 
the next day. The idea took hold of them at 
once. They decided that a captain was needed, 
and a staff, the members of which could be called 
upon for advice and assistance. 



320 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

"Yes, and every one must obey the captain, 
just as in a ball game," exclaimed one. 

The enthusiasm grew as the plan began to take 
form. They said that they would talk it over 
with the others and then call a meeting for gen- 
eral discussion and the election of officers. 

During the next few days the school was filled 
with subdued excitement. Groups of children 
were standing around at recess in earnest dis- 
cussion. 

Finally, on the fourth day, a committee of boys 
went to the desk and asked if they might hold a 
meeting and would the teacher attend. 

Of course he agreed, and when they had assem- 
bled at close of school he took a seat in the rear 
of the room. 

It was a meeting that would have done any 
school-master good. Crimination of the system, 
of themselves and of their teacher who sat in the 
rear were blended in a medley. 

But some of the older boys, those who had 
been on the fishing-trip, soon took the meeting 
in hand. 

"This is our chance," they said. "Reciting 
the lesson don't do us any good if we don't study, 
and there isn't any fun always taking the next 
two pages. If the plan goes through we can say 
what we'll study." This last seemed to be the 



THE RELEASE OF MENTAL FORCES 321 

convincing argument with several, and it made 
the teacher sceptical of the result. 

At last the officers were elected. The captain 
detained his staff a moment for consultation. 

The teacher remarked that as they were in 
charge now they must make the others play hard 
just as in foot-ball. And, of course, they must 
know much more about the lesson than the others 
so as to be able to direct, as the captain does on 
the field. The captain, who had never been 
caught working in the school, was very serious, 
and he took several books from the library, some- 
thing that he had never done before. 

When the class assembled on the following day 
the teacher took his seat on the benches with the 
pupils, remarking that he was now one of them, 
to be questioned with the others. 

The subject was geography. One of the pupils 
asked a question which the captain volunteered 
to answer, and his knowledge was a wonder to 
those who knew his previous record. But this 
was only a part of the change. Each one had 
something to contribute to the answers given. 
Often the discussion was general, but there was 
no disorder. It was just enthusiasm for informa- 
tion. 

The teacher's part in the work was inconspicu- 
ous. There was little for him to do. They had 



322 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

consulted so many books that on several topics 
their information was more varied than his own, 
and it gave them great pleasure when he con- 
fessed ignorance. This pleasure, however, was 
quite different from that which comes with 
"catching the teacher." It was pride in achieve- 
ment. 

The work was serious and the interest intense. 
Would it extend to other classes and would it 
continue? There was nothing to do but wait. 

The other classes through the day maintained 
the same vigor. In arithmetic the members of 
the staff assisted the captain in helping those in 
trouble, and in grammar the relations expressed 
by the several parts of the sentences never re- 
ceived more attention. The teacher was left free 
to give assistance where most needed. 

The strange thing about it all, from the school- 
master's point of view, was that, as time went on, 
the enthusiasm for study increased. The children 
took a different attitude toward their work. 
There was no comfort for shirkers. The general 
smile that frequently greeted failures under the 
old method was distressingly absent. Not to 
know one's lesson was unpleasant. And yet more 
work was assigned than the teacher had ever 
dared to give. 

The officers acted as a kind of committee of 



THE RELEASE OF MENTAL FORCES 323 

safety. Everything that interfered with what the 
pupils had organized to do was referred to them. 
If any criticism of their decisions is justified, it is 
that they tended toward undue severity in their 
judgments. They did not always take the per- 
sonal equation of the offender into account. They 
were more inclined to make the punishment fit the 
crime than the boy. This, however, did not have 
the disastrous effect that is likely to follow a simi- 
lar error on the part of a teacher. The children 
accepted the verdict as though it were a retribu- 
tion of nature for violating her immutable laws. 
The penalty was painful but necessary. 

If complaints were brought to the teacher, he 
refused to consider them until the officers had 
acted. Most of the irritations among school chil- 
dren, as elsewhere, are trivial. When the teacher 
may be held responsible the annoyances are ex- 
aggerated. This is because of the state of armed 
truce between pupils and teacher. If an elected 
body of their own associates is responsible, the 
children easily adapt themselves to their decisions 
whichever way they may fall. 

The officers felt actively responsible for the suc- 
cess of whatever was undertaken, and the senti- 
ment of fair play served to compel the others to 
unite in their support. This feeling of responsi- 
bihty extended to the studies and stimulated each 



324 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

to do the best of which he was capable. It re- 
lieved the teacher of many cares and made him 
a leader instead of a driver. The children were 
continually hunting for information and interpre- 
tations which they could contribute to the com- 
mon fund of knowledge. The text-book ceased 
to be the one thing studied, and "the lesson" was 
no longer committed to memory. The captain 
and his staff changed in a single day what the 
teacher had vainly striven for two months to 
alter. 

The experiment was suggested by the belief 
that permanent interest must rest upon some- 
thing more substantial than involuntary atten- 
tion secured through attractive devices in the 
recitation. This sort of interest lacks durable 
quahties. It encourages the demand for enter- 
tainment and dulls the sensitiveness for less di- 
verting knowledge. The racial instinct to do 
things, to investigate, to control and to be con- 
trolled by the common sentiment of their fellows, 
seems, on the other hand, to furnish a solid basis 
for interest. The studies of the school then gain 
all the enthusiasm which attends self-imposed 
activities. 

We have seen that with the growth in complex- 
ity of the nervous system, animals become more 
responsive to their environment. Stimuh have 



THE RELEASE OF MENTAL FORCES 325 

more meaning for them. Among the lower ani- 
mals, in their native habitat, the sole purpose of 
successful response we have found to be survival. 
But with the advent of civilization intelligent pur- 
pose should replace the blind impulses which prim- 
itive man inherited from his lower kin. 

Increased adaptive flexibihty means an en- 
larged educational capacity. More physical and 
mental adjustments are at the disposal of teachers. 
This is one of the differences between the lower 
animals and man, as well as between primitive 
and civiHzed races. Animals and primitive man 
have each their own Hmits of expansion and no 
system of education can carry them beyond these 
confines. The bounds of civilized man, however, 
have been greatly enlarged through his improved 
cerebral organization. But this highly differen- 
tiated nervous system to which man is heir re- 
quires for its complete growth a correspondingly 
varied environment. A structure which has at- 
tained such marvellous complexity by batthng 
with nature's forces through the ages, cannot be 
conserved on a starvation allowance of stimuli. 
As adequate excitations are needed for its preser- 
vation in the individual as were required for its 
acquisition by the race. The difference is that 
the events and situations which are to act as 
stimuU must now be purposive — definitely planned 



326 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

to accomplish human ends. This is the part which 
intelHgence should play in promoting growth dur- 
ing immaturity. Nature met the earlier needs of 
man, but her aim was satisfied with the product of 
her unintelligent, non-moral forces. Thinking 
beings were only an incident in her programme. 
But after all, self-consciousness must have some 
evolutionary reason for existing and its justifica- 
tions would seem to be the part that it may play 
in furthering the evolution of the species which 
possesses it. Since, then, nature has no interest 
in human ideals, man himself must take advan- 
tage of the intelligence which fortuitous varia- 
tion has produced to promote his own evolu- 
tion. And this involves selection of incentives 
to growth. 

Now the range of adaptations in the school is 
too limited. I do not mean that the studies are 
few. Subjects of study may or may not act as 
stimuH. The mere facts that they are in the curric- 
ulum and that the children attend the classes do 
not make them developing forces. This effective- 
ness depends upon the relation of the individual 
to the situations of which they form a part. Let 
us illustrate again by reference to the lower ani- 
mals. Jackals have probably played no essential 
part in the evolution of lions, but lions, on the 
other hand, have doubtless been a very important 



THE RELEASE OF MENTAL FORCES 327 

factor in producing the cowardly, sneaking char- 
acteristics of jackals. Some forces in nature are 
passive as regards certain animals, though these 
animals live in constant contact with them. What- 
ever influence these forces possess depends upon 
their relation to the requirements of the animals 
for survival. Among the lower animals this re- 
lation is settled by nature, who is a relentless 
school-master. In man, however, the test of an 
influence is not so clear. Adaptation here is not 
a fixed response to a given set of conditions. For 
this reason one cannot always determine in ad- 
vance the sort of conditions which are needed in 
a given instance. The great variety of human tem- 
peraments requires variations in stimuli for the 
attainment of the same result. Experiments are 
often necessary. These require flexibility in the 
system. But the schools are rigid. This results 
in lack of adjustment with accompanying mental 
irritation, if not truancy and incorrigibility. 

Experiments, however, must have a purpose. It 
is necessary to know what one is trying to do. 
And it is just here that teachers have shown least 
intelligence. Modern educational theory and 
practice are contradictory. Ask the purpose of 
education and the answer will always be in terms 
of ability to do things. No other answer is pos- 
sible when we remember how soon facts and in- 



328 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

formation are forgotten. Yet, in practice, teachers 
are chiefly concerned with the content of knowl- 
edge. When you ask of them the reason for 
their inconsistency the reply always is: "We are 
required to finish the book by the end of the 
year. 

The inadequacy of the school as a place where 
boys may be stimulated to thought and action is 
illustrated by the following instance which can be 
reproduced many times in all essential respects 
from any school. 

"The boy hated anything connected with stud}^ 
school, or teachers. The parents never inquired 
why this was so, and could not give a reason. 
He had nothing against his teachers, except as they 
represented the school} The parents, believing in 
education, had no fault to find with the school, 
and were able and willing to send him another 
year. But each morning he had to be urged and 
driven to school. Otherwise he was one of the 
best boys imaginable, helping his mother to take 
care of the little ones, and bringing in coal, wood, 
etc. He would coax her to let him stay away 
from school and offer to do the washing, wheel 
the baby all day around the door-yard, and do 
any work or anything she wanted him to do if 
he could stay away from his books. His parents 

^ The italics in this quotation are the author's. 



THE RELEASE OF MENTAL FORCES 329 

were anxious for him to stand as well in school 
as his elder brothers and sisters, but they saw it 
was of no use; he simply could not learn; even 
the alphabet, they said, was incomprehensible. 
He got along with figures a little better. When 
he was old enough to get his working-papers his 
father and mother discussed the situation, and 
very reluctantly consented to allow him to go to 
work. Three months previous to his birthday he 
began a systematic visiting of the machine-rooms 
in different mills and found a position that suited 
him in the same industry, but not in the same 
mill," in which his father was employed. He 
promptly took the position one week after leav- 
ing school. "What he had learned in the three 
months of observation and visiting among the 
machinists enabled him to take an unusually ad- 
vanced position, causing considerable surprise to 
his parents, who had begun to think him hope- 
lessly dull. He has advanced in knowledge of 
machinery so much within the past eight months 
that his employer has offered to have him taught 
the machinist's trade at his own expense. . . . In 
the mean time he has begun to see the application of 
figures in mechanics, and studies his arithmetic when- 
ever he can. He is entirely changed, his mother 
says, alert and quick where he used to be dull, 
and much happier, always up early and ready to 



330 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

go to work, and 'does not work with his eyes on 
the clock.'" ^ 

The value of handwork as a mental stimulus for 
boys has been demonstrated also in Muskegon, 
Michigan. From the time of the introduction of 
manual training in the high school the total en- 
rolment and average attendance has steadily in- 
creased though the number of children of school 
age, as shown by the school census, has decreased 
each year. The cause of this increase in the high 
school cannot be explained by the change in the 
character of the population because, as the lum- 
ber interests declined, factories have taken their 
places, and factory workmen are not conspicuous 
for sending their children to the high school. 
Superintendent Frost, in speaking of the effect of 
manual work upon the boys, says- that *'they are 
able to interpret the meaning of a high school 
course through the contact with hfe which they 
get by means of the work taken in the manual- 
training school." 

The cases which we have just cited are illustra- 
tions of one way of making some boys think. 
But while manual training should be taken by 
all children and trade schools should be a part of 

1 United States Commissioner of Labor: "Report on Condition 
of Woman and Child Wage-earners in the United States," vol. VII, 
p. ii8. Washington, 1910. 

^ Letter to the author. 



THE RELEASE OF MENTAL FORCES 331 

the public-school system, their introduction does 
not quash the indictment against the schools. In- 
deed many teachers of these subjects are already 
demonstrating that manual training may be made 
as much of a bore as anything else. Like the 
public-school teachers of sciences,^ they are driv- 
ing the children from their classes. A prevalent 
error among school men is the belief that some 
magic device may yet be discovered which will 
steni the tide that is setting in against them. 
Not long ago nature study was to be the savior 
of their system. But nature with all her life and 
beauty soon withered under the bHghting hand of 
formalism. Only thinking teachers can make 
children think. And the first requisite for free 
interplay of thoughts is release from the suffocat- 
ing atmosphere of the school consciousness. Chil- 
dren are mentally asphyxiated by the noxious air 
of pedantry. 

It is an accepted principle in psychology that 
physiological processes underlie mental processes. 
If we try to picture to ourselves the physiological 
condition which represents the neural side of the 
school consciousness, two facts at once disclose 
themselves: the emotional attitude and inhibitory 
impulses. If we accept the James-Lange view of 

' For proof of this statement regarding the sciences, see " Report 
of the United States Commissioner of Education, 19 lo," vol. II, 
p. 1 139. 



332 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

the emotions, and some form of this theory is at 
present the only intelHgible statement of the 
affective side of the mental life, they reduce to 
one, since inhibitory impulses then become a part 
of the emotional response. The physiological as- 
pect of the school consciousness is, then, neural 
resistance or obstruction. Nervous centres refuse 
to send out the impulses which would excite other 
centres and by cerebral association produce, in 
turn, related ideas. Again, counter-currents may 
be sent out which not only oppose the desired 
action, but, besides, lead to adverse responses. 
Under these conditions the brain becomes a storm 
centre of opposing and aberrant nervous impulses, 
and the mind loses all docility. 

Thinking involves association of ideas and, as 
we have seen, the law of association is primarily 
a neural matter. "When two elementary brain 
processes have been active together or in imme- 
diate succession, one of them on reoccurring 
tends to propagate its excitement into the other," 
is the way in which James has described it. Re- 
tention and recall are also dependent upon cere- 
bral processes. The excitement of a group of cells 
connected with the idea in consciousness spreads 
to other cells the activity of which results in the 
appearance in consciousness of associated ideas. 
This is the way in which it works out when there 



THE RELEASE OF MENTAL FORCES 333 

is no interference with cerebral habits. But ner- 
vous processes are exceedingly sensitive to outer 
conditions. A man who has made careful prepara- 
tion for a public address finds that his ideas do 
not readily come when he stands before his audi- 
ence. Again, there are persons in whose pres- 
ence our thoughts refuse to freely flow. Perhaps 
it is from embarrassment, or we may be vaguely 
conscious of lack of sympathy with our views. 
The cause does not matter. The fact is the im- 
portant thing. The nerve centres for the time 
seem paralyzed. They refuse to act. The mo- 
ment we are alone or with a sympathetic friend, 
the neural dam is broken and we think of a dozen 
answers which we might have given in reply to 
the objections that were raised. 

A physician with a large operative practice has 
told the writer of a prolonged state of cerebral 
inhibition under circumstances in which it would 
be least expected. When he tried to dictate the 
description of his chnical cases to his stenographer, 
ideas refused to come. He found it impossible to 
think out the description of his cases or the changes 
produced by the operation, though in the presence 
of physicians he talked fluently about them. When 
he analyzed the cause he found that it was embar- 
rassment produced by the feeling that his stenog- 
rapher might not think highly of his opinion. It 



334 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

was only after an extended treatment by auto- 
suggestion that he overcame the cerebral resist- 
ance. Before beginning to dictate he repeated 
to himself many times that any one who would 
work for fifty dollars a month was so stupid that 
his opinion was not worth considering. 

Children are especially sensitive to these mental 
disturbances. Opposing nervous currents and in- 
hibitions are easily produced. Sometimes it is the 
business attitude of teachers toward their work 
which causes the trouble. Many teach because it 
is the most convenient way of earning a living. 
They instruct as they would dig ditches, anxious 
merely to do as much as will enable them to draw 
their wages. "Latin would be so interesting," said 
a boy of thirteen, "if my teacher only seemed to 
love it." 

Another instance was reported to the writer of 
a young woman who was teaching in a small high 
school. She was just out of college and was so 
full of enthusiasm for her work that she could not 
resist the pleasure of talking about it with her 
associates. "You will not be so enthusiastic after 
you have taught fifteen years," replied one who 
had had the long experience so often thought to 
enhance the value of a teacher. 

Again, it is lack of interest in the children's 
sports which starts opposing nervous currents A 



THE RELEASE OF MENTAL FORCES 335 

young women free from the ennui of years of 
drudgery in traditional methods introduced the 
startUng innovation in her school of attending the 
baseball games of her pupils. Her first appear- 
ance on the field created such a sensation that she 
heard about it from many parents. And the at- 
titude of her pupils changed at once. She was 
now one of them. Her school-room was no longer 
an ogre's den. 

If children are to do their best work mental re- 
straints must be removed so as to give free play 
to associative processes. So long as the teacher 
and pupils are in opposing camps, secret or open 
warfare will be waged. And this feeling of hos- 
tility creates an attitude of resistance which inhib- 
its the effective interaction of nervous currents. 
Thoughtful teachers admit this opposition of inter- 
ests. Those who deny it do so because of the 
implication that they are unsuccessful. So they 
continue to chatter about the dehght of their 
pupils in their studies. But one has only to at- 
tend their classes or hear the children talk among 
themselves to dispel the delusion. 

We have indicated by illustrative examples va- 
rious ways in which the resistance of pupils may 
be overcome. Put in general terms the problem 
is to break down the distinction between school- 
work and the activities in which children engage 



336 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

among themselves. To accomplish this, the school 
must be made more like Hfe in the larger world. 
The school consciousness is an artificial product 
which exists nowhere else. It is the result of 
the tradition that children do not wish to study 
and that consequently they must be compelled to 
endure the agony. Joined with this tradition is 
the belief that drudgery increases the value of the 
training. That which is pleasant is thought to 
lose efficiency in proportion to the joy that it 
gives the pupils. A prominent historian once told 
a friend of the writer that if he thought his books 
were interesting he would destroy them. It is 
needless to say that neither this historian nor 
many writers in other fields have any present 
occasion to begin a wholesale destruction of their 
books. 

But pleasant and easy, as the writer has said 
elsewhere,^ are not synonyms. One is often 
amazed at the difficulty of the tasks which chil- 
dren undertake. Their available energy seems 
inexhaustible when they have freedom to act and 
interact among themselves. They then build up 
a system of ideas and standards which appeal to 
them because they grow out of their own com- 
plex social relations. Some of these ideas and 
standards pass away and are replaced by others 

* "Mind in the Making," p. 113. 



THE RELEASE OF MENTAL FORCES 337 

because they do not fit the needs of the children. 
But through it all there is a constructive growth 
in habits of work. When minds have free inter- 
play, variations occur in methods of doing the 
things in which each one has a share, and the 
ways which "do not work" are discarded for 
those that do. Pleasure in the activity is impor- 
tant here because it stimulates the nerve centres. 
The selection of ways and means by the- learner 
is also in better accord with the needs of the situa- 
tion when he enjoys his occupation. Under free 
interplay of nervous impulses the disadvantageous 
factors in the learning process are more quickly 
eliminated. Put in simpler language, enthusiasm 
frees the mind from restraints. 

Throughout the animal kingdom, stimuli are al- 
lurements to an increase of vital action in the or- 
ganism. Among lower forms, as we have seen, 
death is the penalty for those who do not accept 
the offer. In man, punishment at first took the 
place of the death penalty inflicted by nature 
upon recalcitrants. Now that civilization has ad- 
vanced beyond this stage, some incentive to adap- 
tation must replace the earlier, cruder forces. And 
the stimuli consciously apphed should have a defi- 
nite purpose. In other words, teachers should 
first find out what they are trying to do with 
their pupils, and when they have ascertained this 



338 YOUTH AND THE RACE 

they should plan situations which will stir the 
children's zeal for action. The racial and social 
instincts are exhaustless storage-batteries of ner- 
vous energy, and it is direction of these forces 
rather than restraint that is needed in the schools. 
It is no idle charge that teachers do not know 
what they are trying to do. One needs but to 
read the pedagogical literature and attend the in- 
stitutes to see how indefinite are their purposes. 
Vague phrases about mental discipline and moral 
training have long been the school-masters' chief 
asset. It is time for them to take an account of 
stock and reorganize before the outraged public 
puts the schools in the hands of receivers. 

Definite rules of action for tapping the reser- 
voirs of racial and social energy cannot be given. 
It is largely a matter of personality and tact in 
dealing with children. But the first requirement 
in the teacher is to remove the coating of peda- 
gogical tradition. Then he is ready to absorb mod- 
ern ideas. If such a teacher determines to find 
a plan which will create in the children the same 
enthusiasm for school-work as they have for their 
own activities, he will know when he has succeeded. 
The examples which have been given indicate the 
method. 



INDEX 



Abbotsholme, 304-305 
Adaptation, among animals, 85- 

89, 97, 99-100, 289-290; in 

man, 98-99, loi, 103, 232, 

288-290, 326-327 
Addams, Jane, 248 
Adventure, spirit of, chap. I; 

illustrations, 1-5, 8-26, 31, 

35; racial justification for, 

6-7, 28, 35 
Attention, 46, 253-257, 266, 268, 

284-286 
Ayres, Leonard, 92, 186 

Bernstein, Ludwig, 69-70 

Boas, 88 

Bolton, 7 

Boy Scouts, 32, 35-36, 49, 82, 284 

Burk, Caroline F., 185 

Case, G. M., 93 

Castle, 87 

Cattell, J. McKeen, in 

Child, the "average," 79, 173, 
184, 187; the backward, 96, 
100, 173, 310; the bright, 
132, 173, 187-188, 192, 198; 
the defective, 90-93, 173- 
174; the dull, 184, 191-192. 
See also retardation and 
elimination; the incorrigi- 
ble, 47, 50, 56, 62, 103-104, 
108, 115, 117, 140, 160, 175- 
178, 181, 183, 196, 216. See 
also junior republics and re- 
form schools; the underfed, 
95-96 

Clark, Lotta A., 238-240 

Committee on School Inquiry of 
the New York Board of 



Estimate and Apportion- 
ment, 141 

Co-operation, 67-68, 77, 137, 235, 
304-305. See also pupil- 
government 

Criminal tendencies, effect of 
slums, loi; juvenile court 
reports concerning, 105; de- 
ferred instincts, 231. See 
also playgrounds and junior 
republics 

Culin, Stewart, 7 

Curriculum, 36-37, 307; its sa- 
credness, 193-194, 326 

Darwin, Charles, 288 

Darwin, Francis, 290 

Dayenport, 86 

Democracy, characteristics of, 
144; public schools and, 134, 
142; social centres and, 150 

Demolins, Edmond, 304 

De Quincey, 86 

De Varigny, 87-89 

Discipline, 46, 61, 67-69, 71, 
240-241, 244, 256; special 
classes for, 138-139. See 
also pupil-government 

Dollinger, 86 

Education, action an element in, 
222, 242-243. See also chap. 
VII; attention and, 266; 
compulsory laws for, 134; 
dissatisfaction with, 63; ex- 
perimental method in, 197; 
flexibility in, 210; growing 
points of, 255; imagination 
and, 1 71-172; the individual 
and, chap. V; inconsisten- 



339 



340 



INDEX 



cies in, 175, 327; instincts as 
allies, 28-29; modern prob- 
lems of, 211, 301; need of in- 
centives to, 136-137; ner- 
vous system and, 301; new 
epoch in, 181; of parents, 
156, 159-161; poverty and, 
156-157; rewards and, 308- 
309; situation to-day, 129, 
140; standards of, 133; trial 
and error method in, 290, 
299 

Elimination from school, 129- 
131, 183. See also retarda- 
tion 

Ellis, Havelock, in 

Eminent men, unorthodox school- 
ing and, 202, 217; early en- 
vironment of, 113 

Enthusiasm in education, 337; 
among gangs, 273; how to 
secure it, 35-36, 83, 238, 240 

Environment, 79, 200, 292, chap. 
III. See also genius and 
eminent men 

Experiment and education, 197, 
255.327 

Fisk, John, 300 
Flynt, Josiah, 229-231 
Forbush, 246-247 
Froebel, 316 
Frost, J. M., 330 

Galton, Francis, in, 113-114 

Games, 7, 105 

Gangs, chap. VII; age for, 235, 
246-247; characteristics of, 
247-249, 251, 263, 278; 
leader of, 280-284; reasons 
for organizing, 258; the 
school and, 275-276 

Genius, its environment, in 
113, 197, 200 

Geography, 37 

George, W. R., 224-228 

Grammar, 36, 194 

Gunckel, J. E., 260-262 



Habit, morality and, 122, 126, 
245 

Hebrew Sheltering Guardian So- 
ciety, 52-53 

Herbart, 208, 316 

Herder, 300 

Heredity, 88, 97, 114; as a social 
force, no, 121 

Hodge, C. H., 121 

Holmes, Arthur, 309-313 

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 85 

Individual differences in children, 
189-190, 193, 195, 198-199, 
201, 307, 310; provision for, 
173-175. 180, 184 

Individualism of childhood, 279; 
early signs of, 75, 80, 235 

Inhibition, 36-37, 332, 334 

Initiative in childhood, 36, 38, 73, 
75, 221. See also pupil- 
government 

Interest, 316-318, 324. See also 
pupil-government 

James, William, 332 
Jennings, 290, 300 
Johnson, 257 

Junior republics, 179-184, 206, 
218, 224 

Klebs, 288-289 
Kropotkin, 97 

Lawlessness of boys, 64-65, 273. 

See also racial instincts 
Lindsey, Judge, 272-275, 277 

Manual training in the schools, 
132-133, 243, 311-312, 330- 

Massachusetts Commission on 
Industrial Education, 133 

Medical inspection of schools, 
90-93, 96, 165 

Mind, compartment idea of, 215, 
234; unity of, 215 



INDEX 



341 



Moral training, 50, 66, 69, 74, 
303-304; chap. VI; relation 
to education, 125-128, 216; 
report of Committee on 
Teaching Morals, 65, 70, 80. 
See also environment, junior 
republics, pupil-government, 
and slums 

National Education Association, 
64, 197 

Nervous system, complexity of, 
36, 300, 324-325; efiFect of 
eye strain, 93-95 ; functional 
craving for adventure, 38; 
opposing currents, 333-335; 
relation to education, 301; 
slow response of, 187 

New York Association for Im- 
proving the Condition of the 
Poor, 157 

Odin, Alfred, 111-113 

Pearson, Karl, in, 113 

Pestalozzi, 208, 313, 316 

Pfungst, Oscar, 294 

Physical defects of school chil- 
dren, 90-97; retardation 
and, 92; truancy and, 93 

Playgrounds, influence of, 103- 
106, 121. See also games 

Poverty, education and, 155-157; 
good citizenship and, 158 

Primitive instincts. See racial 
instincts 

Prisons and reformative work, 
118-120, 218-219 

Promotion, 67, 185-189 

Puffer, 246, 248, 263 

Punishment, 33-34, 54-S6, 7°, 
134, 219 

Pupil-government, chap. II; fail- 
ures in, 78; influence of, 58- 
62, 69, 82; moral growth 
through, 74, 224; practical 
results of, 47-63, 66, 74, 76, 
238-240 



Racial fears, 6-7 

Racial instincts, chap. I; effect 
of inattention to, 10-22; en- 
vironment and, 231-232; re- 
version in adults, 29-30; 
tendency to reversion, 82, 
258; utilization of, 9, 28-29, 
32, 35-40, 57-58, 164, 231- 
232, 269-275, 285, 310-312 

Reddie, Cecil, 304-305 

Reform schools, 93, 96, 107-109, 
115, 117, 216, 224 

Responsibility, 36, 69-70, 77, 80- 
82, 117, 127, 241, 323 

Retardation, 92, 129-130, 165, 
173, 186, 198 

Schmankewitsch, 87 

School city, 49, 54, 57-62, 77, 
81-83 

School consciousness, 61, 67-68, 
83, 306, 336 

School efficiency, 38, 67-68, 135; 
failure in, 204; method of 
fostering, 167, 222; radius 
of, 137-138; tests of, 206 

School leagues, 166-168 

School visitor, 159-160, 171 

Schools, Washington, Allston, 
Mass., 56; 4 Bronx, 159; 23 
Bronx, 49-50, 60; 109 Brook- 
lyn, 50, 59-60; Kinzie, Chi- 
cago, 146, 149; McKinley, St. 
Louis, 306; 52 Manhattan, 
52-56; no Manhattan, 47, 
60-62; 114 Manhattan, 52; 
147 Manhattan, 58, 60, 81; 
Thirteenth Avenue, Newark, 
SI, 53, 57; Seward, Minne- 
apolis, 149; community and, 
chap. IV; democracy and, 
134; dissatisfaction with, 
132-133, 141; failure to edu- 
cate, 140-141; investigation 
in New York, 141; politics 
and, 142-143, 150, 168-169; 
social responsibility of, 79- 
80, 127, 148, 200, 234; special, 



342 



INDEX 



for backward children, 138- 
139, 165, 173-174; for de- 
fectives, 173-174; for incor- 
rigibles, 175-178, 255 

Self-control. See pupil-govern- 
ment 

Self-government, 144. See also 
chap. II 

Sentimentality, 38, 67 

Shaw, Bernard, 60 

Sheldon, 246-247 

Slums, influence of, 101-102, 106, 
125,128. See also environ- 
ment 

Small, W. S., 291-292 

Social centres, 145-147, 149; 
causes of failure, 153-154; 
results in rural districts, 152; 
significance of, 147-148, 
151-152 

Social consciousness, 61, 67-68, 
306 

Societies, Boston Newsboys' As- 
sociation, 162-164; Boys' 
Protective Society, 33; Boy- 
ville, 260-262; Boy Scouts, 
32, 35, 284; Brotherhood 
Club, 118; Knights of King 
Arthur, 284 

Stevens, Romiett, 222 

Suggestion, 35-36, 76, 265, 271, 
319 ff. 

Superintendents, 143, 153, 168 



Tardiness, 53; playgrounds and, 
106 

Thorndike, E. L., 130, 131, 140, 
221 

Trade-learning and the tene- 
ments, 137 

Truancy, 37, 53, 59, 62, 95, 96, 
313; compulsory education 
and, 134, 135; home condi- 
tions and, 107; truant 
schools, 138, 179, 180 

Truthfulness, pupil-government 
and, 74 

Twain, Mark, 260 



United States Commissioner of 
Labor, 131, 156, 191, 192 



Van Denburg, 129, 130, 186 
Van Sickle, 185 



Will, the, character and, 126; 
mistaken views concerning, 
123; relation to psychologi- 
cal laws, 124 

Witmer, Lightner, 296, 297, 298 

Woods, F. A., 88, 114 



Yerkes, R. M., 293, 294 



SEP 17 1912 



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